, 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Clark  J.  MUliron 


THE   GOLDEN    HORSESHOE 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSESHOE 


EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  LETTERS  OF  CAPTAIN  H.  L.  HERN- 
DON  OF  THE  21  sx  U.  S.  INFANTRY,  ON  DUTY  IN  THE 
PHILIPPINE  ISLANDS,  AND    LIEUTENANT    LAW- 
RENCE GILL,  A.D.C.  TO  THE  MILITARY  GOV- 
ERNOR OF  PUERTO  RICO.    WITH  A  POST- 
SCRIPT BY  J.   SHERMAN,   PRIVATE, 
CO.  D,  21  ST  INFANTRY 


EDITED  BY 

STEPHEN   BONSAL 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  FIGHT  FOR  SANTIAGO,"  ETC. 


"Ntio 
THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 

IQOO 
All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1900, 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Norfooob  33«sa 

J.  8.  Gushing  fc  Co.  -  Berwick  *  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


"  The  Pacific  Ocean,  its  shores,  its  islands,  and  the 
vast  regions  beyond  will  become  the  chief  theatre  of 
events  in  the  world's  great  hereafter." 

WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  1869. 

"  Whereas  Oceana  .  .  .  is  a  commonwealth  for  in- 
crease and  upon  the  mightiest  foundation  that  any  has 
been  laid  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  this  day. 
The  Sea  gives  the  law  to  the  growth  of  Venice  but  the 
growth  of  Oceana  gives  the  law  to  the  Sea." 

SIR  JAMES  HARRINGTON,  1656. 


EDITOR'S   PREFACE 

As  I  read  and  read  again  the  following  correspond- 
ence between  two  inconspicuous  actors  in  some  of  the 
stirring  events  that  have  marked  the  closing  year,  my 
impression  that  these  letters  constitute  a  document  of 
history  almost  indispensable  for  the  understanding  of 
the  new  era,  which  began  with  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  grew 
into  a  settled  conviction.  Strong  in  this  belief  I  spared 
no  effort,  and  have  at  last  been  successful  in  over-1 
coming  the  natural  reluctance  of  those  to  whom  the 
letters  were  addressed,  to  seeing  words,  which  were 
written  for  the  information  and  the  consolation  of  a 
narrow  circle  of  family  and  friends,  laid  bare  to  the 
colder  scrutiny  of  the  greater  public. 

It  was  my  fortune  to  spend  the  years  of  1895  and 
1896  in  the  Far  East,  and  my  travels  extended  along 
the  east  coast  of  Asia,  from  Siberia  to  Sumatra.  Many 
of  these  journeys  were  made  in  an  official  capacity,  and 
all  were  certainly  undertaken  under  circumstances  which 
were  most  favorable  to  observation,  yet  I  must  confess 
that  I  utterly  failed  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  political 
panorama  which  the  east  coast  of  Asia,  with  its  civili- 
zation in  decay,  its  tottering  thrones  and  vanishing 
races,  and  the  flourishing  colonies  of  the  European 
powers,  with  their  promise  of  growth  and  expansion, 
presents  to  the  observer  to-day,  until  these  notes  of 


viii  EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

things  seen  and  experienced  by  Captain  Herndon  during 
the  eventful  voyage  of  the  U.  S.  transport  Sherman  to 
the  Philippines  fell  into  my  hands. 

I  may  say  that  the  incidents  of  the  Westward  move- 
ment of  our  race,  slow  but  irresistible,  like  the  progress 
of  a  glacier,  moving  in  obedience  to  natural  laws,  have 
always  been  with  me  a  study  of  absorbing  interest. 
Yet  until  this  correspondence,  in  which  the  story  of 
expansion  is  told  with  unstudied  simplicity  and  uncon- 
scious force,  was  opened  to  me,  I  did  not  realize  the 
historical  connection,  the  natural  sequence  of  the  gen- 
erations, between  the  men  of  Devon  who  left  England, 
then  but  a  "swan's  nest  in  a  quiet  pool,"  to  cross  the 
stormy  Atlantic,  between  the  knights  of  the  Golden 
Horseshoe  who  followed  Alexander  Spotswood  across 
the  barrier  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  between  all  those  stalwart 
pioneers  and  pathfinders  who  won  the  West,  and  the 
exploits  of  Perry  and  Dewey,  who,  following  the  path 
of  civilizing  empire,  carried  our  flag  across  the  Pacific. 

Although  in  the  course  of  the  Westward  movement 
to  the  East  we  have  climbed  mountains,  in  comparison 
with  which  the  peaks  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  that  seemed 
impassable  to  the  Virginia  planters,  are  but  foot-hills, 
and  crossed  a  spacious  sea,  to  which  the  Atlantic  is  but 
indeed  a  narrow  pond,  yet  it  was  only  yesterday  that 
we  reached  the  goal  which  the  early  navigators  and 
settlers,  whose  blood  is  our  blood,  sought  to  find  be- 
tween the  Virginia  Capes,  and  in  sailing  up  to  the  head- 
waters of  the  James  and  the  Potomac.  "  For  Sir  Francis 
Drake  was  on  the  back  side  of  Virginia  in  his  voyage 
about  the  world  in  thirty-seven  degrees,  and  now  all  the 
question  is,  only  how  broad  the  land  may  be  to  that 
place  [i.e.  California]  from  the  head  of  James  River 


EDITOR'S   PREFACE  ix 

above  the  falls.  By  prosecuting  discoveries  in  this 
direction  the  planters  in  Virginia  shall  gain  the  rich 
trade  of  the  East  Indies."  These  are  sentiments  not 
of  an  expansionist  of  to-day,  but  the  words  of  the  un- 
known author  of  A  Perfect  Description  of  Virginia,  of 
which  he  delivered  himself  in  the  year  1649. 

To-day  when,  by  the  grace  of  Admiral  Dewey's  vic- 
tory in  Manila  Bay,  we  stand  at  the  cross-roads  of  the 
Eastern  seas,  and  China,  once,  as  Marco  Polo  truly 
wrote,  "Ye  greatest  kyngdome"  in  the  world,  lies  before 
us  in  hopeless  decline,  the  question  of  the  hour  by  which 
we  are  confronted  is  whether  the  door  of  China  is  to  be 
opened  to  or  closed  upon  our  trade  and  our  civilization ; 
whether  the  policy  of  fair  trade  and  equal  opportunity 
for  all,  which  is  honored  in  the  English-speaking  world, 
is  to  be  maintained,  or  whether  the  Plantation  System, 
long  since  discarded  by  us,  but  still  regarded  with  favor 
by  Russia,  Germany,  and  France,  is  to  take  its  place. 
In  a  word,  whether  the  last  market  of  the  world,  with 
its  six  hundred  millions  of  people,  is  to  become  a  closed 
preserve  and  a  forbidden  land,  with  defences  far  more 
formidable  than  ever  crowned  the  legendary  wall  of 
China,  or  the  natural  field  of  expansion  for  our  trade 
and  commerce.  With  the  opinions  which  Captain 
Herndon  expresses  as  to  our  duty  in  this  crisis,  both 
toward  the  people  of  Asia  and  those  who  come  after 
us,  I  am  in  complete  accord. 

To  these  letters  I  find  I  am  indebted  for  a  better 
understanding,  which  has  brought  with  it  a  greater  con- 
fidence, in  the  men  who  are  engaged  upon  the  problems 
of  peace  in  the  West  Indies  and  the  task  of  pacification 
in  the  East  Indies,  which  the  irresistible  course  of  events 
has  imposed  upon  us.  More  closely  even  than  by  our 


x  EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

solicitude  the  administrators  of  our  new  possessions  are 
followed  by  the  eyes  of  the  greater  world,  and  from  the 
manner  in  which  they  acquit  themselves  the  measure 
of  the  new  power,  which  was  called  into  the  service  of 
civilization  and  of  humanity  as  a  result  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War,  will  be  taken.  I,  for  one,  have  never 
permitted  myself  to  doubt  but  what  these  new  problems 
will  be  resolved  in  a  way  worthy  of  our  deeds  in  the 
past  and  our  promise  for  the  future.  Should  a  feeling 
of  similar  confidence  be  aroused  in  the  breasts  of  any 
into  whose  hands  these  pages  may  fall,  the  publication 
of  a  private  correspondence  will  be  more  than  justified 
as  a  public  benefit. 

For  obvious  reasons,  the  names  of  the  writers  have 
been  changed,  and  some  portions  of  the  correspondence 
have  been  omitted  as  immaterial  or  of  an  entirely  per- 
sonal nature,  but  with  these  exceptions  and  omissions 
noted,  the  letters  stand  as  they  were  written  in  camp 
and  in  the  field,  upon  the  firing  line  and  in  the  hospital, 
upon  strange  seas  and  at  home,  in  storm-swept  Puerto 
Rico,  and  in  the  jungles  and  rice-fields  of  Luzon.  In- 
deed, under  all  the  various  circumstances  and  the  strange 
vicissitudes  which  have  attended  the  incidents  of  the 
wonderful  year  upon  which  the  leaves  are  falling  now. 


STEPHEN   BONSAL. 


HAYDEN  ISLAND, 

ALEXANDRIA  BAY,  N.Y., 

October  25,  1899. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Lieutenant  Gill  to  Captain  Herndon,  Towson,  Md.,  December 

2,1898 i 

Lieutenant  Gill  to  Captain  Herndon,  The  Palace,  San  Juan  de 

Puerto  Rico,  January  24,  1899 38 

Captain  Herndon  to  Lieutenant  Gill,  U.S.  Transport  Sher- 
man, Colombo,  Ceylon,  April  5,  1899       ....      50 

Captain  Herndon  to  Lieutenant  Gill,  U.  S.  Transport  Sher- 
man, Singapore,  S.  S.,  April  16,  1899       ....      66 

Captain  Herndon  to  Lieutenant  Gill,  U.  S.  Transport  Sher- 
man, Hong  Kong,  April  25,  1899 114 

Captain  Herndon  to  Lieutenant  Gill,  U.  S.  Transport  Sher- 

man,  off  Nagasaki,  Japan,  May  12,  1899   ....     238 

Captain  Herndon  to  Lieutenant  Gill,  Manila,  P. I.,  June  7,  1899    290 

The  Postscript 3°S 

xi 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSESHOE 


TOWSON,  MD., 

December  2,  1898. 
DEAR  HERNDON  :  — 

Seeing  you  registered  at  the  Ebbitt  House,  I  tele- 
graphed to  ask  you  to  come  over  (I  am  only  two 
hours  away  from  the  Capital)  and  have  a  talk  about 
the  campaign  and  the  reorganization  of  the  army. 
There  are  plenty  of  listeners  here,  but  I  hunger  for 
a  discussion  or  even  a  controversy  to  stir  my  blood, 
and  the  doctor  also  thinks  that  this  would  prove  benefi- 
cial. Why  should  the  generals  have  all  the  fun  after 
the  campaign  as  well  as  in  it  ?  So  for  these  various  rea- 
sons I  was  indeed  sorry  to  get  your  reply  saying  it  was 
impossible  for  you  to  come,  and  that  you  are  under  orders 
to  report  immediately  for  duty  at  Plattsburg  Barracks. 
I  wonder  what  they  are  going  to  do  with  you.  Please 
let  me  know  the  moment  you  get  an  inkling.  I  suppose 
you  have  seen  in  the  Register  that  the  Sixth  Infantry, 
or  what  is  left  of  them,  is  back  at  Fort  Thomas  trying 
to  recruit  three  hundred  men  worthy  to  replace  those 
brave  fellows  who  followed  Egbert  and  fell  on  the 
slopes  of  San  Juan  Hill.  As  you  know,  the  Sixth  will 
probably  be  the  first  of  the  reinforcements  sent  to  the 


2  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Philippines.  Now  I  am  going  to  confide  in  you  a 
secret,  or  at  least  about  half  of  one,  and  you  must 
not  breathe  it  even  to  your  "bunkie."  I  am  not  to 
follow  the  old  regiment,  because  the  Board  of  Medical 
Survey  has  condemned  me.  I  am  to  keep  away  from 
active  service  for  at  least  six  months,  and  in  the  mean- 
time I  go  to  Puerto  Rico  about  January  ist,  to  act  as 
personal  aide  to  General  Davis,  who  is  expected  to  take 
over  the  government  of  that  island  with  the  new  year. 

I  can  quite  well  understand  you  feeling  a  little  hurt 
at  not  having  heard  from  me  the  moment  I  was  able  to 
write.  Certainly,  after  all  you  and  Sherman  and  "  Long 
John  "  Waters  did  for  me  after  I  had  stopped  my  bullet, 
it  was  the  very  least  I  could  have  done  to  show  my 
appreciation ;  and,  dear  man,  I  did  it.  I  can  cross  my 
fingers  and  swear  that  the  first  letter  I  wrote  after  I  was 
-able  to  sit  up  was  addressed  to  you.  I  sent  it  to  Mon- 
tauk  or  to  the  adjutant-general's  office,  —  I  do  not 
remember  which  very  clearly,  —  and  I  suppose  the 
letter  has  been  lost  in  the  shuffle.  This,  however, 
should  in  a  way  be  for  you  a  matter  of  congratula- 
tion, for  the  present  epistle  will  not  prove  as  long  as  the 
previous  one.  I  have  been  reading  the  other  fellows' 
yarns,  and  the  conclusion  is  forced  upon  me  that  my 
experiences,  however  startling  they  seemed  at  the  time, 
were  not  singular,  and  that  we  all  fared  and  shared 
pretty  much  alike. 

Do  you  ever  sit  down  and  hold  your  head  and  think 
hard  to  try  and  take  in  all  the  things  that  have  hap- 
pened since  the  day  the  Maine  was  blown  up  less 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  3 

than  a  year  ago,  and  you  and  I  cut  Dickman's  lecture 
on  tactics,  and  bought  Spanish  grammars,  and  sat  up 
nights  over  railway  maps  of  Cuba,  all  that  was  available 
at  Leavenworth,  while  the  other  fellows  laughed  and 
said,  "There  will  be  no  war"  —  a  strange  tangle  it  has 
been  truly,  and  we  are  only  beginning  to  see  our  way 
clear  now. 

But  here  goes  for  the  yarn,  and  don't  interrupt  me 
once  I  get  started,  for  you  have  brought  it  all  upon 
yourself.  Well,  the  last  I  saw  of  you  after  you  dragged 
me  out  of  the  line  of  fire  and  put  me  down  under  the 
cottonwood  tree,  you  were  following  McKibbin,  who 
looked  as  tall  as  a  beanpole,  and  the  Twenty-first, 
stretched  out  in  line  of  battle,  was  sweeping  down  into 
the  valley  by  the  side  of  San  Juan  Fort,  and  going  up 
the  second  hill  on  the  left  at  the  double  quick,  and  it 
looked  as  though  you  were  going  in  to  Santiago  then 
and  there.  I  felt  a  lot  better  the  moment  you  got  me 
out  of  the  sun,  and  tried  to  take  an  interest  in  the  things 
that  were  going  on  about  me,  though  I  confess  it  was 
all  very  confused,  and  I  am  afraid  I  shall  not  be  able  to 
give  a  straight  account  of  how  the  battle  was  fought  and 
won  until  my  grandchildren  come  upon  the  scene,  when 
of  course  it  will  be  absolutely  necessary  to  do  so.  Soon 
what  they  call  in  the  story  books  the  tide  of  battle  swept 
away  from  my  particular  neighborhood,  leaving  me  an 
interested  spectator  of  an  apparently  empty  field.  Out 
of  sheer  loneliness  I  tried  to  feel  like  a  hero,  and  tried 
to  think  a  hero's  thoughts,  and  say  what  he  says  under 
his  breath,  so  low  that  only  the  author  can  hear  him ; 


4  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

but  you  know  somehow  I  couldn't  manage  it  —  the 
whole  thing  was  too  confoundedly  real  for  that.  To 
tell  you  the  truth,  what  I  thought  about  most  was 
whether  they  would  court-martial  me  for  having  be- 
come impatient  and  started  up  the  side  of  the  hill  with- 
out any  particular  orders,  simply  because  I  couldn't 
stand  still  any  longer  and  had  a  feeling  that  the  man 
who  had  been  sent  with  the  orders  to  charge  had  been 
shot,  or  that  the  man  who  didn't  give  the  orders  ought 
to  be  shot,  —  it  never  was  quite  clear  in  my  mind  which 
and  it  isn't  to  this  day, — and  of  course  all  the  time  I 
was  hoping  and  praying  that  the  boys  would  succeed 
all  along  the  line,  and  then  of  course  there  would  be  no 
court-martial. 

Then,  though  it  seemed  to  me  I  was  the  only  man  in 
sight,  I  began  to  notice  the  guinea  grass  in  the  meadow 
below  and  on  the  lower  slopes  of  the  hills  falling  in 
swathes  as  though  mowed  down  by  the  sweep  of  some 
great  invisible  scythe,  and  the  sweep  came  nearer  and 
nearer  until  it  was  high  time  to  think,  and  I  did 
think  a  great  deal  as  to  whether  the  cottonwood  tree, 
which  I  was  hugging  so  close,  was  tough  enough  to 
stop  a  bullet.  For  a  long  time  —  indeed  not  until  hours 
after  I  was  knocked  over  did  I  feel  in  the  least  hurt. 
The  sensation  was  at  first  as  though  some  one  had 
sneaked  up  behind  me  and  given  me  a  blow  with  a  base- 
ball bat.  I  could  not  say  exactly  where  the  blow  had 
fallen.  I  wasn't  particularly  hurt  anywhere,  only  I 
had  no  control  over  my  body  and  lower  limbs.  I  could 
move  my  right  hand  a  little  and  my  neck,  which  was 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  '  5 

useful ;  so  I  spent  the  time  in  chewing  grass  that  was 
damp  and  moist  and  helped  to  quench  my  burning 
thirst,  and  every  now  and  then  in  peeping  an  inch  or 
two  around  the  trunk  of  the  tree  to  have  a  look  at  what 
was  going  on.  Perhaps,  for  all  the  sensation  I  had  of 
being  "  all  there  "  with  the  limitations  I  have  mentioned, 
my  eyes  had  lost  their  power  of  sight  and  my  ears  the 
faculty  of  hearing,  for  it  is  a  fact  that  for  a  long  time 
now  I  saw  and  heard  nothing.  The  whole  battle-field 
seemed  deserted,  and  I  did  not  catch  the  crack  of  a 
single  rifle,  though  the  tassels  of  the  guinea  grass 
continued  to  fall  all  around  me.  I  imagine  I  was  in 
a  state  of  physical  collapse  without  being  unconscious, 
and  the  first  thing  that  aroused  me  was  a  low  hum- 
ming noise  as  if  you  fellows  were  cheering  about  ten 
miles  away  on  the  left,  and  then  I  saw  the  cavalry- 
men swarming  down  one  hill  and  plodding  up  the 
next,  and  so  I  guessed  everything  had  gone  all  right. 
Then  I  began  to  get  cross,  in  fact,  I  soon  became 
raving  mad  at  those  artillerymen  of  ours  back  on  El 
Pozo  Hill,  who  it  seemed  had  only  gotten  the  range 
of  San  Juan  Hill  when  our  men  had  taken  it.  Just  as  I 
decided  to  have  the  whole  outfit  placed  in  arrest,  to 
give  the  finishing  touch  to  my  bad  humor,  one  of  their 
shells  came  screaming  along  and  knocked  off  a  big 
branch  of  my  tree  which  fell  with  a  crashing  noise  with- 
in a  foot  of  my  head.  But  at  last  they  understood  the 
signals ;  the  firing  died  away,  and  I  saw  there  was  still 
a  slim  chance  of  my  finishing  that  course  of  tactics  at 
Leavenworth. 


6  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Then  there  was  another  pause  (for  stillness  and 
tranquillity  the  Maine  woods  or  a  Colorado  canon 
could  not  touch  some  of  the  odd  corners  of  the  San 
Juan  field),  but  I  did  not  want  this  rest  cure,  anything 
but  that,  it  made  me  more  nervous  and  uneasy  than  the 
racket  of  a  few  moments  before,  and  then  I  suppose  it 
was,  when  my  hearing  came  back  to  me,  I  heard  a 
rustling  in  the  grass  and  the  dry  wood  breaking  under 
a  heavy  tread.  At  first  I  thought  it  was  a  horse  that 
was  advancing  so  steadily  up  behind  me  on  all  fours  — 
then  it  breathed  like  a  man  —  well,  if  I  had  done  what  I 
wanted  to,  I  should  have  yelled  for  dear  life;  but  I  argued 
that  would  be  unsoldierly  and  useless  as  well,  for  as  far  as  I 
could  see  there  was  not  a  bluecoat  in  sight  except  those 
heaps  of  them  lying  so  still  along  the  line  of  the  wire  fence 
in  the  meadow  below.  There  was  now  no  doubt  in  my 
mind  but  what  it  was  a  "gorilla,"  as  Sherman  and 
Waters  called  the  Spanish  irregulars,  and  that  one  of 
them  was  coming  to  make  short  work  of  me.  "  Well, 
who  cares,"  I  thought;  "better  that  than  to  live  a 
cripple,"  and  then  a  familiar  face  appeared  over  my 
shoulder,  and  a  voice  I  should  have  known  among  a 
thousand  said,  "Well,  boy,  have  you  stopped  a  bullet 

too?"  and  my  "gorilla"  turned  out  to  be  M of 

the  Sixteenth,  with  a  good-natured  smile  upon  his  face, 
though  he  certainly  had  nothing  to  be  thankful  for. 
He  had  been  struck  with  a  piece  of  one  of  our  own 
shells,  and  as  he  crawled  along  one  of  his  legs  trailed 
behind,  looking  as  though  it  did  not  belong  to  him. 
I  said  nothing;  I  guess  the  effort  to  meet  my  fate  fairly 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  7 

and  squarely  had  taken  it  out  of  me,  not  a  little.  Then 
the  whole  business  began  to  dance  around,  and  my  teeth 
to  chatter.  It  grew  dark  and  so  cold  very  suddenly,  and 

the  last  thing  I  remember  was  M ,  God  bless  him  for 

it !  squeezing  his  canteen  to  give  me  the  last  few  drops 
of  coffee  and  water  he  had,  and  putting  his  arm  on  my 
shoulder,  and  saying,  "That  will  pass,  my  boy,  and 
you'll  be  all  right ;  we've  got  the  hill,  that's  the  main 
thing,  and  the  hospital  men  and  the  doctors  will  come 
along  soon." 

When  I  came  to  I  felt  much  better;  I  could  move 
my  neck  and  hands  more  freely.  I  would  have  sprung  to 
my  feet,  I  felt  so  restored  in  every  way,  only  it  seemed 
that  my  feet  did  not  belong  to  me  and  a  heavy  weight 
across  my  thighs  pinned  me  to  the  ground,  so  I  only 
peeped  around  the  tree  and  saw  our  flag  waving 
from  the  blockhouse,  and  that,  I  can  tell  you,  set  the 
blood  in  circulation  better  than  a  good  stiff  drink,  or 

at  least  just  as  well.     I  shouted  for  M ,  I  .wanted 

to  tell  him  all  about  it,  but  there  was  not  a  sign  of 
him,  and  this  puzzled  me  not  a  little,  for  he  was  not 
the  man  to  desert  his  pal;  then  I  thought,  he  has 
crawled  down  into  the  valley  to  call  the  stretcher  men. 
If  I  could  only  get  that  weight  off  my  hip,  perhaps  I 
could  move,  certainly  I  would  be  a  lot  more  comfortable ; 
so  I  made  a  great  effort  to  roll  and  turned  over  and 
over,  and  as  I  rolled  a  foot  or  two  away  from  the  tree 
something  heavy  fell  to  the  ground,  and  I  saw  it  was 

M ,  who  had  been  shot,  and  fallen  over  me,  and  lay 

there  now  before  me  with  his  face  to  the  ground. 


8  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

At  last  the  hospital  men  appeared.  When  they  turned 

M over  and  saw  he  was  dead  they  left  him  and 

came  on  to  me.  Then  I  had  another  fainting  spell  and 

that  saved  me  from  leaving  M alone  out  there  in  the 

long  grass.  When  I  came  to  they  were  carrying  me 
down  the  jungle  road  swung  in  a  damp  blanket ;  all  the 
rush  and  excitement  of  the  morning,  of  when  we  were 
advancing  under  such  a  heavy  fire  to  make  our  jump  in 
the  dark  was  gone  now,  I  can  assure  you.  They  carried 
me  till  we  came  to  the  "  bend  "  where  the  road  again 
crosses  the  San  Juan ;  here  was  the  dressing  station ;  and 
on  the  near  side  of  the  stream,  protected  in  a  measure 
by  the  high  bank,  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  our  poor 
fellows  were  stretched  out  in  rows  and  files  awaiting 
the  coming  of  the  doctors.  Some'were  long  since  dead, 
others  past  all  helping,  and  they  all  lay  there  shoulder 
to  shoulder  in  the  chill  air  of  the  evening.  Nearly  all 
of  them  were  stripped  to  the  waist,  and  indeed  many 
of  them  were  absolutely  without  any  covering  except  the 
blood-stained  first  aid  bandages  that  some  comrade  had 
wrapped  about  their  wounds  when  they  fell. 

Word  was  passed  to  us  by  the  hospital  men,  as  they 
hurried  back  to  the  hill,  that  we  were  to  wait  here  for 
the  ambulances  to  carry  us  back  to  the  division  hospital. 
Had  we  taken  them  literally  at  their  word  we  would  all 
be  lying  in  the  "bloody  bend"  still,  for,  as  it  turned  out, 
the  ambulances  had  been  left  behind  at  Tampa.  That 
was  a  ghastly  choice  that  General  Shafter  had  to  make 
when  he  learned  how  limited  were  the  transport  facilities 
that  the  Government  could  place  at  his  disposal.  When 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  9 

it  narrowed  down,  as  it  did,  to  choosing  between  ambu- 
lances and  the  medical  stores  and  appliances  for  the 
wounded,  and  the  men  that  were  necessary  to  carry  the 
enemy's  position,  of  course  he  was  right  in  choosing 
the  latter,  though  it  was  a  cruel  alternative,  and  one 
which  we  should  see  is  never  imposed  upon  an  American 
general  again. 

There  was  so  much  natural  indignation,  after  the 
campaign  was  over,  about  the  embalmed  beef  and  the 
other  shortcomings  in  preparation  and  outfit,  that  to  me 
it  has  seemed,  in  the  popular  clamor  and  outcry,  the 
principal  feature  of  the  campaign  has  been  lost  sight 
of,  and  little  credit  has  been  given  for  what  was  accom- 
plished. The  great  mass  of  our  people,  and  indeed 
many  who  took  part  in  the  campaign,  have  been  so 
carried  away  by  the  flood  of  controversy,  that  they 
seem  to  have  quite  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  the 
Fifth  Corps  was  sent  up  against  a  "  tough  proposi- 
tion," and  that  we  only  pulled  through  by  the  skin 
of  our  teeth.  For  my  own  part,  I  confess,  when  I  re- 
member what  we  had  to  encounter,  how  considerable 
were  the  odds  against  us,  I  am  at  times  inclined,  not 
only  to  doubt  the  accuracy  of  the  other  fellows'  narra- 
tives of  how  we  succeeded,  but  even  my  own  recollec- 
tion of  the  results  secured. 

Have  you  ever  had  time  to  think  it  all  over  ?  I  im- 
agine not,  so,  at  the  risk  of  boring  you,  I  am  going  to 
state  my  conception  of  the  campaign,  as  I  have  studied 
it  out  during  the  many  hours  that  fell  heavy  on  my 
hands  in  the  hospital,  and  this  is  how  it  looks  to  me. 


io  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

On  a  small  island,  several  hundred  miles  from  a  suitable 
base  on  our  shores,  were  200,000  troops  of  the  enemy, 
all,  without  exception,  well  armed  and  with  the  ex- 
perience of  two  or  three  seasons  in  the  country  where 
the  campaign  had  to  be  fought,  so  they  were  not  only 
acclimated,  but  should  have  been  thoroughly  conversant 
with  the  nature  of  the  ground.  To  meet  the  emergency, 
our  army,  a  skeleton  corps  of  improvised  regiments, 
hastily  jumbled  together  and  numbering  in  all,  including 
2000  volunteers,  only  16,000  men,  was  sent  across  the  sea, 
and  it  was  expected  of  us,  with  the  cooperation  of  the 
navy,  that  we  should  capture  one  of  the  chief  towns  of 
the  islan'd,  known  to  be  a  strong  place  by  nature,  for- 
tified with  considerable  engineering  skill,  and  defended 
by  from  12,000  to  15,000  rifles.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind,  that  there  were  not  only  200,000  Spanish  sol- 
diers on  the  island  of  Cuba,  but  that  in  the  military 
department  of  Santiago,  that  is,  within  a  hundred  miles 
of  the  city  we  were  sent  to  capture,  there  were  from 
15,000  to  20,000  other  troops  who,  it  was  to  be  expected, 
would  push  to  the  relief  of  their  threatened  stronghold, 
as  indeed  some  of  them  —  about  4000  men  —  did  suc- 
ceed in  doing. 

Now  of  course  to  the  merest  tyro  in  military  affairs, 
this  proposition  has  only  to  be  presented  to  be  rejected 
as  a  foolhardy  venture,  that  is,  unless  assurances  were 
given  which  justified  the  authorities  in  Washington  in 
believing  that  under  the  circumstances  and  the  condi- 
tions existing  on  the  spot  (of  which  they  of  course  had  no 
information  but  what  the  naval  officers  on  the  scene  had 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  n 

given  them)  that  the  cooperation  and  support  which  the 
navy  would  be  in  a  position  to  furnish  the  landing  parties 
wt>uld  prove  to  be  of  the  greatest  value  and  assistance, 
and  indeed,  as  it  appears  now,  such  assurances  and  of 
the  most  unreserved  and  outspoken  character  had  been 
received  in  Washington  before  the  military  expedition 
was  decided  upon.  In  his  official  despatches,  since 
made  public,  Admiral  Sampson  stated  that  with  an 
army  of  10,000  men  once  landed,  the  Spaniards  could 
not  maintain  their  positions  around  Santiago,  and  that 
within  forty-eight  hours  the  city  must  fall. 

Any  one  reading  the  despatches  from  the  naval  com- 
mander-in-chief  would  conclude,  and  indeed  no  one  in 
Washington  or  with  the  army  doubted  for  a  moment, 
but  what  the  land  defences  and  the  sea  batteries  had 
suffered  most  severely  during  the  various  bombardments 
by  the  fleet,  and  that  the  Spanish  guns  for  the  most 
part  had  been  silenced.  Now,  so  far  from  this  being 
the  case,  as  we  learnt  to  our  cost,  practically  both  the 
sea  and  land  batteries  of  the  Spaniards  were  as  effective 
for  the  defence  of  the  place,  and  perhaps  more  so,  on 
the  day  of  the  surrender,  as  they  had  been  when  the 
American  fleet  first  appeared  in  the  offing.  The  North 
Atlantic  squadron  destroyed  the  Spanish  fleet  in  short 
order,  when  the  opportunity  came,  and  so  of  course  cut 
Santiago  off  from  reinforcements  by  sea;  but  beyond 
the  moral  effect  of  this  victory  upon  the  Spanish  land 
forces  they  did  not  render  the  slightest  assistance  to  our 
army  in  carrying  out  what  was  for  us  the  principal 
object  of  the  expedition,  namely,  the  capture  of  the  city 


12  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

and  garrison  of  Santiago,  which,  as  I  have  said,  would 
never  have  been  for  a  moment  taken  into  consideration 
had  not  more,  a  very  great  deal  more,  been  expected 
from  the  navy  in  the  way  of  cooperation. 

You  will  remember  what  our  feelings  were  after  we 
had  been  ashore  a  few  days,  how  great  was  our  surprise 
when  we  found  ourselves  quite  isolated,  and  saw  that  as 
far  as  the  land  side  of  the  venture  was  concerned,  we 
should  have  to  stand  or  fall  quite  alone.  Perhaps 
Admiral  Sampson  was  only  oversanguine  in  reporting 
the  damage  inflicted  by  his  ships  upon  the  Spanish  land 
defences ;  perhaps  he  was  at  fault,  in  the  beginning,  in 
underestimating  the  strength  of  the  Spanish  position 
and  the  facilities  which  they  possessed  for  defending 
the  place ;  still,  nothing  at  the  time  could  account  for 
the  inexplicable  way  in  which  he  held  aloof  with  his 
fleet,  and,  as  it  seemed  to  us,  left  the  army  to  shift  for 
itself  in  getting  out  of  a  very  tight  place  which  it  had 
entered  at  his  invitation  and  suggestion  ;  and  of  course 
no  one  in  Washington,  and  no  one  with  the  army, 
would,  for  a  moment,  have  countenanced  the  campaign 
in  the  conditions  I  have  outlined,  and  under  which  it 
was  fought  out,  had  not  such  great  reliance  been  placed 
upon  the  effective  cooperation  of  the  navy. 

To-day  much  has  been  cleared  up  by  the  publication 
of  the  despatches  of  the  Navy  Department,  and  I  can- 
not sufficiently  regret  the  grumbling  and  worse  which, 
at  about  this  time,  was  loud  throughout  the  army  against 
Sampson  and  the  fleet,  though  under  the  circumstances 
it  was  all  natural  enough  —  now,  however,  the  mystery 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  13 

is  explained.  It  was  about  this  time  that  our  relations 
with  Germany,  though  officially  all  right,  had  actually 
become  strained,  owing  to  the  equivocal  attitude  of  the 
German  admiral  at  Manila,  and  Sampson  had  received 
orders  which  had  to  be  obeyed,  however  disagreeable 
they  may  have  been,  to  the  effect  that  he  was  not  to 
attempt  to  enter  the  harbor  of  Santiago,  or  undertake 
any  other  operation  that  would  endanger  the  safety  of 
any  of  his  armored  vessels. 

Well,  we  went  ahead,  alone  and  unassisted  practi- 
cally, and  we  succeeded,  and  23,000  men  of  the  enemy, 
all  behind  intrenchments,  surrendered  to  our  expedition 
of  16,000  after  a  three  weeks'  campaign,  and  we  re- 
ceived their  surrender  at  a  time  when  we  had  not  more 
than  8000  men  effective  for  duty. 

I  am  not  at  all  jealous  of  the  navy  and  I  glory  in 
their  exploits,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  success  of  the 
navy  is  a  success  for  the  army,  and  glorious  for  all 
of  us ;  but  facts  are  facts,  and  credit  and  honor  should 
be  given  where  they  are  due;  —  as  the  opening  of  a 
new  era  in  the  East  Dewey's  bloodless  victory  in  Manila 
Bay  is  worthy  of  every  consideration,  in  fact  it  is 
epoch-making,  but  as  a  naval  exploit  it  was  insignifi- 
cant. Dewey  had  every  advantage  that  better  ships 
and  better  guns  can  give,  and  he  availed  himself  of 
his  every  advantage  most  intelligently.  The  battle  of 
Manila  would,  however,  only  deserve  to  be  recorded  as 
a  great  naval  victory  had  Dewey  fought  the  Spanish 
ships,  the  Spaniards  ours,  and  our  gunners  have  still 
secured  the  victory. 


14  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

But  there,  as  you  see,  like  all  the  Santiago  veterans,  I 
have  wandered  from  the  subject  in  hand  and  fallen 
quite  naturally  into  controversy.  I  believe,  however, 
that  these  facts  will  not  escape  history,  and  that  the 
land  fighting  around  Santiago  will  come  to  be  regarded 
as  the  most  creditable  performance  of  American  arms 
during  the  Spanish  war,  and  that  due  honor  will  be 
given  to  the  men  who  bore  the  brunt  of  the  fight- 
ing. .  .  . 

I  think  I  left  off  my  personal  narrative  and  began 
this  military  disquisition  at  about  the  moment  when  I 
found  myself  dumped  out  of  my  blanket  stretcher  and 
left  to  shift  for  myself  among  the  heaps  of  wounded 
huddled  together  on  the  banks  of  the  San  Juan.  As 
you  know,  the  ambulances  never  did  come,  and  the 
army  wagons,  that  were  to  replace  them,  came  late. 
Hurriedly  and  with  scant  ceremony  as  were  the  wounded 
slung  into  these  rough  carts  and  carried  three  miles 
back  to  the  division  hospital,  our  transportation  did  not 
keep  pace  with  the  throngs  of  wounded  that  were  now 
coming  in  or  being  brought  down  in  every  conceivable 
way  from  the  slopes  of  the  hill  where  they  had  fallen ; 
so  the  later  it  grew  the  crowds  of  wounded,  in  our  im- 
provised dressing  station,  far  from  diminishing,  became 
larger,  and  the  inadequacy  of  our  facilities  for  caring 
for  the  wounded  only  more  glaringly  apparent. 

The  stretcher  men,  as  was  natural,  dropped  their 
burdens  of  groaning  flesh  as  near  to  the  road  as  possi- 
ble, and  these,  of  course,  being  the  nearest  to  hand, 
were  the  first  to  be  slung  into  the  wagons  and  sent 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  15 

back  to  the  rear ;  so  it  soon  became  apparent  that  the 
wounded  who,  like  myself,  had  been  brought  in  at  a 
comparatively  early  hour  would  be  the  last  to  reach  the 
hospital.  That  night,  as  ill  luck  would  have  it,  you 
will  remember,  the  brightest  and  most  brilliant  moon  I 
have  ever  seen  rose  early  and  shed  its  cold  penetrating 
light  over  all  the  horrors,  —  nothing  was  hid  to  the  eye. 
The  night  was  clear  and  still,  and  we  heard  every  moan 
of  our  neighbors  and  every  death-rattle  as  we  lay  in 
the  damp  grass  awaiting  our  turn  for  whatever  was  to 
come. 

How  long  this  lasted  I  haven't  the  most  remote  idea ; 
every  now  and  then  I  would  lose  consciousness  and 
then  come  to  again  only  to  find  myself  surrounded  by 
the  same  familiar  scenes,  and  to  note  here  and  there 
a  new  face  among  the  sufferers  or  that  a  familiar  one 
was  gone.  At  last  I  saw  "  Long  John "  Waters  and 
Sherman  walking  slowly  up  and  down  through  the 
rows  of  the  wounded,  and  I  knew  they  were  looking 
for  me.  I  tried  to  cry  out  to  direct  their  footsteps 
and  to  hasten  their  coming,  but  I  found  I  could 
not  raise  my  voice  above  a  whisper,  so  I  kept  my 
eyes  glued  upon  them  and  waited  patiently  until  they 
reached  me.  When  I  felt  Sherman's  arm  about  my 
shoulders,  and  he  gave  me  the  drink  of  coffee  you  had 
sent  down,  I  can  tell  you  I  felt  better  immediately, — 
almost  up  to  my  fighting  weight.  Ewers  had  sent  them 
down  to  bring  in  a  wounded  man  and  to  keep  an  eye 
on  me,  and  I  can  tell  you  they  did  it.  They  loaded  me 
into  the  next  wagon  that  came  and  kept  close  to  me 


1 6  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

all  the  way  down  to  the  hospital.  It  must  have  been 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  I  should  say,  when  they 
carried  me  into  the  bamboo  enclosure.  After  waiting 
a  few  minutes  in  the  guinea  grass,  which,  thank  God, 
kept  me  from  seeing  what  was  going  on,  Sherman  and 
Waters  stripped  me  and  carried  me  to  the  surgeon's 
table,  and  there,  in  the  glare  of  the  lanterns  and  the 
smoke  of  the  pine  torches,  I  believe  they  dug  several 
bullets  out  of  me,  but  you  had  better  ask  Sherman 
about  that.  He  asked  for  permission  to  keep  one  as  a 
souvenir  and  as  a  sure  cure  against  warts,  and  I  have 
another;  then  they  took  me  back  again  away  from  the 
crowd  and  put  me  down  in  a  quiet  corner  where  I 
would  have  been  very  comfortable  but  for  the  cold. 
They  both  hustled  about  for  a  few  minutes  and  then 
Sherman  returned  with  a  blanket  which,  he  said,  he 
had  picked  up  in  the  road.  It  was  not  a  likely  tale, 
and  I  am  quite  confident  it  was  his  own.  I  tried  to  re- 
fuse, but  he  would  not  hear  of  it.  "  There  is  many  a 
man  lying  on  San  Juan  Hill  to-night,"  he  said,  "who 
don't  need  any  blanket  at  all  any  more,  and  I  will  make 
free  with  one  of  theirs."  They  wrapped  me  up  care- 
fully, and  soon  I  was  as  warm  as  toast,  and  only  then 
they  hurried  back  to  the  front  to  be  ready  for  the  fight- 
ing at  daybreak. 

The  ride  of  ten  miles  back  to  Siboney  which  I  made 
a  few  hours  later,  also  in  an  army  wagon,  must  have 
been  a  terrible  experience,  but  I  can  only  judge  of  it 
from  the  scars  and  bruises  I  received,  some  of  which 
I  carry  to  this  day.  Fortunately  for  me,  I  was  un- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  17 

conscious  throughout  the  journey,  so  I  can't  tell  that 
yarn.  I  only  remember  waiting  in  the  wagon  for 
what  seemed  an  eternity  outside  the  narrow  gate  of 
the  hospital,  awaiting  our  quota  of  men,  and  then  the 
crack  of  the  whip  and  the  mules  backing  and  filling, 
as  they  always  do  before  they  take  to  pulling,  and 
then  I  knew  no  more  until  I  awoke  under  a  tent  at 
Siboney.  Here  they  dug  out  another  bullet,  which 
the  surgeon  at  the  front  had  overlooked.  Not  that  I 
blame  him,  for  he  only  had  two  minutes  to  give  me ! 

When  I  began  to  take  notice  of  things  again,  many 
days  had  passed,  all  the  rush  and  hurry  was  over,  the 
high  pressure  had  been  removed,  convalescents  limped 
along  the  beach  and  through  the  hospital  streets,  wait- 
ing for  something  to  happen,  and  nothing  ever  did. 
We  had  only  one  interest  in  life,  and  that  was  whether 
the  inevitable  afternoon  rain  would  come  early  or  late ; 
and  this  was,  I  can  assure  you,  a  question  of  vital 
importance  to  us.  If  it  came  early,  there  would  still 
be  enough  sunlight  to  dry  out  in  after  the  shower  had 
passed.  If  it  came  late,  then  we  had  to  spend  the 
night  soaked  through  to  the  skin,  and  every  night  it 
was  growing  colder  and  colder.  But  we  could  have 
stood  all  manner  of  discomforts,  if  only  something  had 
happened,  and  if  only  we  had  received  now  and  again 
a  bit  of  news  to  let  us  know  that  we  were  still  on  the 
same  planet  with  the  other  fellows.  Siboney  seemed, 
during  these  days,  to  be  under  a  spell.  On  shore  there 
was  utter  stagnation.  Outside,  the  transports  were 
circling  idly  about  like  great  gulls.  After  a  while  we 


1 8  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

came  to  regard  them  simply  as  painted  ships  upon  a 
painted  ocean,  and  not  real  although  they  did  move. 

I  was  rather  hot,  I  can  tell  you,  with  our  fellows, 
for  the  way  they  were  neglecting  me.  They  might 
have  dropped  in  every  now  and  then  —  especially  dur- 
ing the  armistice  —  to  find  out  how  I  was  getting 
along  and  to  bring  me  the  news;  but  now  I  absolve 
them  from  all  blame.  They  had  diligently  traced  me 
through  all  my  wanderings,  and,  as  perhaps  you  know, 
received  documentary  evidence  to  the  effect  that  I  had 
been  sent  home  on  the  Seneca.  But  at  the  time  I  knew 
nothing  of  this;  and  you  may  imagine  my  surprise, 
when  one  morning  I  lit  my  pipe  with  a  whisp  of 
newspaper,  to  read  upon  it  my  own  name  in  a  head- 
line, and  my  still  greater  astonishment,  as  I  read  on, 
to  learn  that  Lieutenant  Lawrence  Gill,  one  of  the 
San  Juan  heroes,  had  reached  New  York,  where  he 
was  met  at  quarantine  by  his  father  and  mother,  and 
that  the  meeting,  copious  details  of  which  were  given, 
was  affecting.  I  have  no  doubt  it  was,  but  not  more 
affecting,  I  think,  than  the  scene  at  Siboney,  when  I 
read  of  my  good  fortune  which  some  other  hero  was 
enjoying.  As  it  turned  out,  the  hero  was  Johnstone 
of  the  Thirteenth.  The  hospital  men  had  gotten  our 
tickets  mixed  up  as  we  lay  side  by  side  in  the  field 
hospital,  and  he  had  gone  home  in  my  berth  and  on 
my  billet,  —  a  piece  of  dumb  luck  for  him,  if  I  ever 
heard  of  one.  In  the  meantime,  I  sat  day  after  day 
wondering  who  in  the  dickens  the  fellow  was  who 
looked  and  felt  so  much  like  the  shadow  of  my  former 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  19 

self,  but  who,  instead  of  being  in  New  York  and  in  the 
embrace  of  fond  parents,  sat  and  waited  for  something 
to  happen  on  the  beach  at  Siboney.  It  was  about  this 
time  that  they  decided  to  burn  the  village  in  a  belated 
effort  to  stamp  out  the  yellow  fever,  and  it  was  interest- 
ing to  watch  the  columns  of  smoke  which  curled  up  on 
every  side,  but  somewhat  monotonous.  Then  a  band  of 
Cuban  patriots  of  the  stripe  that  was  very  careful  to 
keep  away  from  the  front,  came  marching  and  counter- 
marching up  and  down  the  hospital  streets,  full  of  aguar- 
diente and  threats  to  murder  every  one  of  us  in  revenge 
for  the  burning  of  their  pigsties.  We  only  had  about 
ten  able-bodied  soldiers  in  the  place,  —  this  was  before 
the  Twenty-fourth  came  back  to  guard  the  hospital,  — 
and  there  were  moments  when  it  looked  as  though 
something  were  going  to  happen,  if  that  something  were 
only  a  massacre,  but  I  was  mistaken.  Soon  the  Cubans 
went  sour  on  their  tipple  and  disappeared  like  snakes 
in  the  jungle. 

I  kept  quiet,  and  every  morning  the  doctor  would 
drop  in  and  look  me  over,  say  I  was  doing  nicely,  and 
pass  on  to  the  next  man.  One  morning  he  surprised 
me  by  not  making  use  of  his  encouraging  if  somewhat 
stereotyped  words.  He  returned  in  an  hour  or  two  and 
took  my  temperature  and  pulled  down  my  eyelids  as 
though  he  had  never  seen  green  eyes  before.  A  few 
minutes  later  four  men  of  the  hospital  corps  came  along, 
sprinkled  me  with  disinfectants,  and  loaded  me  on  a 
stretcher  without  so  much  as  touching  me.  "Well, 
where  am  I  bound  now  ? "  I  asked.  "  You  go  to  the 


20  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

yellow  fever  hospital,"  said  one  of  them,  with  a  good- 
natured  grin.  They  were  as  good  as  their  word,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  they  loaded  me  on  to  one  of  the  flat  ore- 
cars  with  about  a  dozen  other  suspects  and  two  real 
yellow  fever  patients.  Here  we  lay  for  some  hours, 
until  the  old  engine,  which  the  Spaniards  had  set  fire 
to  and  we  had  fitted  up,  was  coupled  on,  and  then  we 
started  for  the  mines,  three  or  four  miles  into  the  inte- 
rior, where  the  yellow  fever  hospital  had  been  finally 
located. 

Of  course  that  engine  broke  down,  and  of  course  in 
the  hottest  hour  of  the  day  and  in  the  sunniest  spot  in 
Cuba.  We  lay  there  until  evening,  when  the  crippled 
engine  was  detached  and  we  were  rolled  up  to  our 
gloomy  quarters  by  man  power.  In  about  a  week,  when 
the  scare  had  subsided,  they  found  out  that  I  didn't  have 
the  fever  at  all,  and  after  burning  all  my  belongings  so 
variously  acquired,  I  came  back  on  the  ore-cars  and  be- 
gan life  all  over  again  on  the  beach  with  a  flannel  shirt 
for  all  my  outfit.  I  did  not  want  the  Siboney  doctors  to 
be  prying  into  my  eyes  again.  They  didn't  look  right, 
even  to  me.  I  had  a  terror  of  again  being  condemned 
as  a  yellow  fever  suspect  and  sent  back  to  the  mines 
for  my  sins,  so  I  preferred  to  give  the  wound  hospital 
a  wide  berth  and  take  chances  with  what  I  could  pick 
up  on  the  shore,  and  it  was  not  so  bad.  I  took  pos- 
session of  a  comfortable  tent  with  luxurious  furnishings 
and  etceteras  which  a  mess  of  newspaper  men  had  left 
standing  just  as  it  was  when  they  went  home  the  moment 
they  learned  of  the  surrender,  an  event  which,  of  course, 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  21 

knocked  all  the  news  value  out  of  the  campaign.  At 
first  I  called  my  new  residence  "  Lonesomeville."  Soon, 
however,  a  number  of  discharged  men  and  convales- 
cents came  to  bunk  with  me,  and  whatever  else  we  may 
have  lacked  it  certainly  wasn't  company. 

Some  of  these  fellows  had  been  ordered  to  report  to 
their  regiments,  but  were  too  weak  to  make  the  journey 
to  the  front  on  foot.  Though  many  of  them  made  the 
attempt,  it  seemed  to  me  hardly  worth  while  to  order 
them  up,  as  after  the  surrender  men  were  not  so  urgently 
needed.  We  got  no  more  information  from  the  outside 
world  than  if  we  had  been  marooned  on  Robinson  Cru- 
soe's Island.  We  didn't  hear  of  the  surrender  until  four 
days  after  it  took  place,  but  we  had  suspected  it  the 
moment  the  fleet  of  transports,  that  had  been  drifting 
idly  in  the  offing  for  so  many  weeks,  got  up  full  steam 
and  disappeared  in  the  west.  One  night,  at  last,  we 
were  awakened  by  hearing  a  ship  blowing  off  steam 
and  emptying  her  ashes  out  in  the  bay.  How  we  did 
it  I  don't  know,  but  we  got  on  board  that  ship, 
every  one  of  us  in  about  ten  minutes.  When  we  told 
them  who  we  were,  for  at  first  they  had  thought  we 
were  buccaneers  come  over  from  the  Spanish  M^in, 
we  were  informed  that  this  heaven-sent  vessel  was  a 
transport  from  Ponce  bound  for  Fortress  Monroe  with 
wounded  and  sick.  She  was  not  overloaded,  there  was 
room  on  board  for  all  of  us,  and  we  never  went  back  to 
"  Lonesomeville  "  to  get  our  kits.  The  skipper  said  he 
would  wait  for  us,  but  when  a  man  has  been  on  the 
beach  for  two  weeks  he  takes  no  chances. 


22  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

War  is  war,  and  you  can  never  make  it  anything 
else  however  many  Peace  Conferences  and  Red  Cross 
Congresses  you  may  convene ;  but  there  was  one  thing 
about  this  campaign  that  somebody  ought  to  swing  for, 
and  that  was  the  foul  water  which  was  furnished  the 
transports.  Ours  was  simply  putrid  ;  you  had  to  hold 
your  nose  while  you  drank  it,  and  in  consequence  many 
a  poor  fellow,  who  had  survived  his  wound  and  the 
other  inevitable  dangers  of  the  campaign,  soon  sickened 
and  died.  Even  to-day  I  hate  to  ask  for  news  of  the 
men  who  sailed  with  us,  for  in  one  way  or  another  I 
have  heard  of  the  death  of  five  of  them  from  typhoid 
fever  after  they  reached  home.  .  .  . 

Sometimes  I  dream  of  that  great  saloon  in  which 
we  spent  so  many  hours,  the  Social  Hall  as  it  was 
called,  and  I  awaken  in  a  cold  perspiration.  It  was 
filled  with  red  plush  sofas  and  steam  heaters ;  I  think  in 
times  of  peace  this  transport  was  engaged  in  the  Arctic 
trade,  sailing  from  Newfoundland  or  Nova  Scotia.  We 
had  a  contract  surgeon  on  board,  a  boy  of  about  twenty- 
two,  to  take  care  of  us,  and  he  did  it,  though  there  were  a 
hundred  of  us,  including  fever  patients,  and  he  was  alone 
and  unassisted  except  by  two  or  three  volunteers  of  the 
Two  Hundred  and  Second,  New  York,  who  had  been  sent 
down  to  Santiago  on  some  foolish  errand,  I  think  it  was  to 
carry  steel-plate  shields  weighing  about  eighty  tons  apiece 
to  strengthen  our  intrenchments  at  the  front,  and  this  at 
a  time  when  we  did  not  have  sufficient  transportation  to 
give  the  men  more  than  half  rations.  These  fellows  saw 
their  chance  and  they  took  it ;  they  worked  day  and  night 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  23 

with  the  surgeon,  not  only  with  a  will,  but  with  great 
intelligence.  I  only  wish  I  could  remember  the  names 
of  those  boys,  and  I  would  like  to  have  a  chance  to  write 
upon  their  discharge  papers  what  fine  fellows  we  all 
knew  them  to  be. 

The  first  feeling  of  being  wounded,  especially  in 
a  winning  fight,  is  nothing,  —  it  is  the  days  that  come 
after,  when  you  are  weak  and  worried  and  fretful 
that  are  unbearable,  especially  steaming  through  the 
sweltering  doldrums  on  a  steamer  fitted  out  for  Arctic 
voyages.  The  central  figure  in  the  Social  Hall  was 

Major  A -:   both  of  his  legs  had  been  broken  and 

badly  shattered  by  a  piece  of  shell,  another  fragment 
had  given  him  an  ugly  face  wound.  His  legs  were 
drawn  up  and  held  in  the  air  by  slings,  and  it  was 
only  with,  his  shoulder-blades  that  he  rested  upon  his 
couch.  He  would  never  walk  again  and  he  knew  it; 
he  had  spent  forty  years  of  his  life  in  the  army ;  he 
was  not  a  hustling  man  to  begin  with,  I  take  it,  and 
army  routine  and  red  tape  had  crushed  all  the  initiative 
out  of  him.  There  he  lay  before  us  from  morning 
until  night,  and  from  night  until  morning,  studying 
the  ceiling  and  the  patterns  of  the  upholstery, 
and  thinking  and  thinking.  "What  is  the  major 
thinking  about?"  we  often  asked,  and  one  night  he 
told  us,  as  an  apology  to  the  crowd  of  convalescents 
and  cripples  all  about  him,  for  not  entering  upon 
the  childish  games  with  which  they  conspired  to  cheat 
time.  "Boys,  I  have  a  heap  to  think  about;  I  am 
thinking  if  there  is  a  place  in  the  United  States  where 


24  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

a  cripple  like  myself  can  feed  and  clothe  and  educate 
nine  children  on  $1800  a  year — that  will  be  about  my 
figure  when  the  Board  condemns  me,  and  of  course  if  I 
die  there  will  only  be  the  pension."  That  was  a  hard 
problem,  and  as  we  could  extract  no  comfort  from  it  for 
him,  at  last  we  left  him  alone  to  study  it  out  by  himself. 

One  day  some  one  discovered  an  odd  volume  of 
Charles  O'Malley  on  board.  The  lucky  finder  sat  in 
the  Social  Hall  and  laughed  and  chuckled,  and  laughed 
again  in  the  face  of  all  the  ghastly  surroundings  of  the 
place,  until  we,  who  had  nothing  to  read  that  would 
make  us  laugh,  or  even  hold  our  attention,  rose  in  the 
majesty  of  our  greater  numbers  and  confiscated  the 
book  for  the  public  good.  Each  man  in  turn  read  a 
chapter  aloud,  and  we  all  felt  lonely  indeed,  as  though 
the  life  of  the  ship  had  departed,  when  the  story 
was  finished  and  we  closed  the  cover  on  the  doings 
of  O'Malley,  Power,  and  Considine.  "That  book  is 
a  terrible  indictment  against  the  Board  of  Strategy 

in  Washington,"  said  Colonel  H .  "We  ought  to 

have  waged  this  war  against  Spain,  in  the  port  and 
sherry-wine  districts,  where  a  fellow  could  quench  his 
thirst,  and  not  down  there  where  nothing  comes  out  of 
the  ground  but  land-crabs.  Ugh  !  " 

We  had  given  up  all  thought  of  seeing  land  again,  we 
had  been  at  sea  so  long,  when  late  one  night,  or,  as  it 
turned  out  to  be,  early  one  morning,  as  I  dozed  on  my 
red  plush  lounge  with  old  newspapers  doing  duty  as 
sheets,  I  heard  the  magic  rattle  of  the  anchor  chain,  fol- 
lowed by  a  great  splash. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  25 

As  I  hobbled  up  on  deck  the  day  was  breaking, 
and  I  saw  we  had  slipped  through  the  Capes  in 
the  night,  and  were  now  at  anchor  off  Fortress  Mon- 
roe. Men  who  hadn't  put  foot  to  ground  for  many 
a  long  day  came  climbing  up  the  companionway  in 
answer  to  my  shout,  and,  well,  the  physical  pain  they 
suffered  didn't  count  with  the  joy  they  had  of  seeing 
God's  country  again.  We  were  where  we  had  so  often 
wished  to  be;  and  so  we  cheered  everything  in  sight, 
the  sandy  shores,  the  scrub  pines,  the  old  casemated 
fort,  and  the  hotels  that  rose  before  us  sky-high. 

When  the  doctor  came  out  in  his  launch  he  seemed  a 
pleasant,  inoffensive  little  rnan,  not  that  we  paid  much 
attention  to  him  then,  we  had  too  many  other  things  to 
look  at,  and  we  regarded  his  visit  purely  as  a  matter  of 
form ;  as  for  fevers  and  such  things  we  were  back  in 
God's  country  once  again,  and  didn't  have  to  bother 
about  them  any  more,  we  thought.  So  we  packed 
away,  and  shook  hands  and  said  last  words  preparatory 
to  separating  and  going  ashore,  but  for  the  best  part  of 
the  time  we  leant  over  the  ship's  rail,  and  watched 
the  railway  cars  as  they  ran  along  the  shore,  and  the 
steamers  as  they  went  in  and  out,  wondering  whether  it 
would  be  by  land  or  by  sea  that  the  last  stage  in  our 
journey  home  was  to  be  made.  Then  the  bad  news 
came.  You  could  have  heard  a  pin  drop,  when  that 
quiet  and  inoffensive  little  man  announced,  and  with 
evident  regret  too  I  shall  do  him  the  justice  to  say,  that 
several  of  our  fever  patients  presented  suspicious  symp- 
toms, and  that  he  would  have  to  place  our  transport 


26  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

under  observation  for  twenty-four  hours,  and  await 
developments.  All  the  pretty  pictures  and  the  pleas- 
ing prospects  which  the  sight  of  land  had  conjflred  up, 
and  which  had  all  seemed  so  real,  vanished,  and  we  felt 
again  as  we  did  in  the  days  when  we  were  beach  combers 
on  the  shore  at  Siboney,  with  not  a  sail  in  sight.  The 
suggestion  which  one  optimist  made  that  perhaps  the 
doctor's  decision  was  but  a  formal  precaution  and  that 
we  would  all  be  permitted  to  land  the  next  day  was 
voted  down  unanimously  —  even  the  proposer  did  not 
stand  by  his  views.  Whenever  we  had  trusted  any- 
thing to  chance,  it  had  always  turned  out  against  us,  and 
we  were  satisfied  that  there  were  cases  of  yellow  fever 
on  board,  and  that  the  doctor  was  simply  breaking  the 
news  to  us  gently.  He  would  probably  let  us  have  the 
truth  in  the  morning,  and  then  we  would  be  in  for  ten 
days'  quarantine  at  least,  and  some  of  us  would  not 
land  at  all,  but  die  like  rats,  and  that,  too,  in  sight  of 
home. 

Then  the  mournful  council  of  war  adjourned,  and 
we  were  put  to  our  usual  expedient  for  killing  time. 
There  is  nothing  like  a  rubber  of  whist  to  attain  this 
object,  especially  when  you  are  cooped  up  on  a  trans- 
port, and  it  certainly  was  provoking,  and  the  least 
thing  was  irritating  at  such  a  moment,  that  Eppes,  our 
fourth  man  —  you  remember  him  from  Fort  Riley  days, 
a  tall  lank  Virginian  in  the  Second  Artillery  —  could  not 
be  found.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  volunteer  to  play 
with  the  dummy,  much  as  I  dislike  it,  when  suddenly 
we  discovered  our  man.  I  had  almost  said  unearthed 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  27 

him,  but  the  fact  is  we  caught  sight  of  him  in  the  crow's- 
nest,  up  aloft,  leaning  far  out  and  scrutinizing  the  scene 
very  much  in  the  traditional  attitude  of  Napoleon  look- 
ing down  upon  the  world  and  the  ruins  of  the  genera- 
tions from  the  Pyramids.  He  answered  our  hail  with 
anything  but  enthusiasm,  and  the  little  major  who  was 
in  a  towering  rage  (he  had  pried  into  every  nook  and 
corner  of  the  ship  after  the  missing  man)  snorted, 
"Well,  what  in  the  devil's  name  were  you  doing  up 
there,  Eppes  ? " 

"Why,"  he  answered  ingenuously,  as  though  what  he 
had  been  doing  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world, 
"I  have  been  taking  a  bird's-eye  view  of  Virginia  — 
the  Old  Dominion,  you  know,  before  the  expansion 
came." 

We  all  laughed.  Eppes  was  a  queer  fellow,  there 
was  no  doubt  about  that,  and  the  major,  obviously 
for  the  purpose  of  killing  time  with  a  little  incidental 
amusement,  began  to  draw  him  out. 

"  And  what  did  you  see,  my  son  ?  " 

"Why,  I  saw  it  all,  about  all  there  was  of  it,  at  least, 
for  the  first  hundred  years." 

"  Well,  what's  the  name  of  that  place  over  there,  the 
tall  village  composed  exclusively  of  grain  elevators?" 
inquired  the  major. 

"Why,  that's  the  terminus  of  the  Western  Railroad, 
and  through  those  elevators  perhaps  one-half  of  our 
export  wheat  passes,"  answered  Eppes,  with  a  touch  of 
state  pride.  "  It's  called  Newport's  News,  though  to-day 
they  have  forgotten  all  about  the  history  of  the  place, 


28  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

and  have  dropped  the  apostrophe  and  the  's' —  the 
heathens." 

"  Well,  you  tell  us  all  about  it,  Eppes,  especially  about 
the  apostrophe  and  the  's,'  "  wheedled  the  major,  with  a 
wink  at  the  rest  of  the  party. 

Eppes  didn't  wait  to  be  asked  a  second  time ;  he 
climbed  about  twenty  feet  up  into  the  ratlines;  we 
thought  that  in  the  first  flush  of  his  excitement  he  was 
going  back  to  his  station  in  the  crow's-nest,  but  he 
stopped  short  of  that  and  began,  with  many  explanatory 
waves  of  the  arm,  to  do  the  honors  by  presenting  to  our 
notice  the  salient  features  of  his  native  state.  Some  of 
the  places  he  pointed  out  I  could  not  see  in  the  same 
light  that  he  did,  and  some  I  could  not  see  at  all,  but 
of  course,  as  is  well  known,  affection  is  a  great  spur 
to  the  senses  and  renders  them  most  acute. 

"Just  about  where  those  grain  elevators  stand,"  he 
began,  "through  which  millions  and  millions  of  people 
are  fed  every  month,  a  little  short  of  three  hundred 
years  ago  a  party  of  men,  the  survivors  of  the  first 
English  colony  in  Virginia,  starving  and  dispirited, 
drew  the  canoes  out  of  the  water  in  which  they  had 
made  their  escape  from  Powhatan  and  the  Pamun- 
keys.  They  were  without  provisions  and  nearly  out 
of  ammunition.  Day  and  night,  for  many  weeks,  they 
worked  felling  timbers  to  build  a  long-boat  in  which, 
so  desperate  was  their  situation,  they  had  decided  to 
attempt  a  voyage  to  the  Bermudas.  One  morning  the 
sentinels,  who  watched  while  the  others  worked  with 
the  energy  of  despair,  spied  a  sail  coming  in  between 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  29 

the  Capes,  over  there  where  you  and  I  see  to-day  a 
hundred  sail  and  the  smoky  trail  of  a  score  of  steamers. 
At  first,  in  anticipation  of  still  further  bad  fortune,  they 
thought  it  must  be  the  Spanish  governor  from  Florida, 
who  had  come  to  execute  his  oft-repeated  threat  to  hang 
any  Englishman  who  presumed  to  settle  in  the  territory 
of  the  Catholic  kings  by  whom  Virginia  was  then  claimed, 
so  the  refugees  drew  their  canoes  into  the  bushes  and 
cowered  down  in  the  brush  awaiting  the  development  of 
this  new  misfortune.  But  the  strange  ship  sailed  boldly 
in  as  a  friend  would,  and  English  words  came  wafted 
to  them  from  the  English  boat,  and  with  loud  hurrahs 
the  refugees  swarmed  down  on  the  beach  to  welcome 
Captain  Newport,  who  had  come  to  their  relief;  and 
what  do  you  think  he  brought  them?" 

"Quail  on  toast,"  said  the  little  major,  who,  though 
shot  all  to  pieces,  and  crippled  for  life,  would  have  what 
he  called  his  joke. 

"  No,  he  brought  them  provisions  to  carry  them 
through  the  winter  and  seed-corn  and  maize  to  plant  in 
the  spring,  and  so  the  refugees,  being  of  the  right  stuff, 
went  back  to  their  deserted  colony  and  stuck  it  out,  and 
that's  why  these  elevators  are  feeding  millions  of  people 
to-day  all  over  the  world.  Old  Newport  was  a  rival 
of  Smith  and  a  pretty  tough  old  file,  I  believe.  In  the 
chronicles  of  the  colony,  and  the  archives  of  the  Virginia 
Company,  you  can  read  the  talking-to  that  he  gave  the 
refugees  from  Jamestown  on  this  occasion. 

" '  We've  got  to  bring  the  wilderness  under  cultiva- 
tion and  civilize  those  Pamunkeys,  if  it  takes  every  man 


3o  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

in  Devon  or  even  in  all  England  to  do  it,'  he  insisted. 
But  as  I  told  you,  the  refugees  were  the  right  sort. 
They  went  back  and  planted  their  seed-corn,  and  gath- 
ered their  harvest,  musket  in  hand,  and  that  was  the 
beginning  of  the  Old  Dominion." 

Curiously  enough,  we  had  all  been  stationed  at  Fort- 
ress Monroe  at  one  time  or  another,  or  visited  army 
friends  there,  and  the  physical  environment  of  the  place 
was  perfectly  familiar  to  us,  but  we  had  not  even  guessed 
at  the  meaning  of  the  old  landmarks,  until  Eppes  placed 
them  before  us,  and  in  the  light  of  his  enthusiasm  and 
affection  made  them  live  again.  How  many  times, 
without  knowing  it,  we  had  sailed  over  these  waters, 
the  birthplace  of  our  nation,  and  tramped  after  ducks 
where  the  expansion  of  the  English  race  received  its 
baptism  of  fire  and  came  out  pure  gold.  Listening  to 
Eppes,  however,  we  saw  the  connection  between  the 
suffering  of  the  stout-hearted  pioneers  and  our  present 
prosperity,  between  their  small  beginning  and  our  world- 
wide empire  for  peace  and  civilization.  And  there  was 
balm  in  the  thought,  I  can  tell  you,  that  perhaps  the 
little  we  had  done  and  what  we  had  suffered  in  Puerto 
Rico  and  Cuba  for  the  sake  of  humanity  and  the  honor 
of  the  flag,  might  be  productive  of  similar  and  even 
more  far-reaching  results. 

But  Eppes  did  not  leave  us  much  time  to  reflect 
upon  the  changes  that  the  centuries  have  wrought ;  he 
went  straight  ahead  into  the  details  of  the  picture  which 
lay  so  near  to  his  heart,  while  his  eyes  flashed  and  his 
lips  quivered  a  little  as  he  spoke. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  31 

"  This  is  Old  Point  Comfort.  Behind  it  the  Admiral 
of  New  England  sought  refuge  from  the  storm  that 
threatened  his  ship  with  destruction.  That  little  speck 
of  land  over  there,  just  off  Cape  Charles,  is  Smith's 
Island.  And  while  nobody  around  here  to-day  knows 
which  Smith  it  is  named  after,  two  hundred  years 
ago  there  was  no  room  for  doubt  but  what  it  was 
named  after  Captain  John  who  first  explored  'Ye 
sweete  and  wholesome  land.'  And  that  long  neck 
of  silver  sand  just  opposite  the  fort,  that's  Willoughby 
Point  which  the  king  gave  to  the  descendants  of  Sir 
Hugh  in  recognition  of  the  services  of  the  old  navigator 
who  said  that  man  is  as  near  Heaven  on  the  sea  as 
upon  the  dry  land." 

Then  seeing  that  our  interest  was  not  on  the  wane, 
Eppes  dropped  his  desultory  manner  of  pointing  out 
the  salient  features  and  began  to  box  the  historical  com- 
pass in  a  more  methodical  way. 

"  You  see  the  Capes  out  there  ?  " 

"Yes,"  we  answered,  in  one  breath,  "we  just  can  see 
them." 

"Well,  of  course,  they  were  named  after  the  royal 
princes,  Charles  and  Henry ;  and  all  the  shore  on  your 
left  as  you  come  in,  was  called  after  Princess  Anne,  and 
is  so  known  to  this  day,  though  who  the  lady  was  .  I 
never  could  make  out ; *  and  over  there  is  Black  Jack 
Bay,  where  Teach,  the  famous  pirate,  was  hung,  though 
not  until  he  had  terrorized  the  coast  of  Virginia  and 
the  Carolinas  for  years ;  and  there  is  Norfolk,  of  which 

1  Probably  Queen  Anne. — THE  EDITOR. 


32  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

old  Colonel  Byrd,  the  seventeenth-century  chronicler 
said,  '  It  has  most  the  air  of  a  town  than  any  place  in 
Virginia.'  If  you  run  over  there  and  have  a  look 
around,  you  will  see  that  it  looks  like  a  town  still." 

Then  Eppes  made  us  spin  around  on  our  heels,  as 
though  we  were  a  raw  lot  of  recruits,  and  we  were,  in 
these  matters,  and  face  north  northwest. 

"  The  low-lying  land  over  there  is  Nansemond,  and 
a  little  farther  up  is  the  mouth  of  the  James  River, 
named  after  the  canny  king,  and  the  York,  after  the 
duke,  and  beyond  that  is  the  old  capital  of  Williams- 
burg,  and  a  little  farther  north  still  stand  the  trenches  of 
Yorktown  where  Cornwallis  surrendered  and  the  strug- 
gle for  independence  was  crowned  with  success.  A 
little  way  up  the  river  lies  Warwick,  one  of  the  finest 
counties  in  the  Tidewater,  and  when  they  named  it,  the 
Virginians  were  not  as  loyal  as  when  they  had  sprinkled 
the  names  of  royal  princes  and  princesses  all  over  the 
place.  They  said  it  was  called  after  the  old  English 
shire,  but  really  they  had  in  mind  the  barons  and  the 
man  who  made  and  unmade  kings.  And,"  he  con- 
cluded, "  now  you  have  seen  all  there  was  to  it  two 
hundred  years  ago  when  the  barrier  of  the  Blue  Ridge 
blocked  the  way." 

"  And  how  she  has  grown  in  two  hundred  years,"  ex- 
claimed the  major,  snapping  his  little  black  eyes.  "The 
old  dominion  only  stretched  from  the  Capes  to  the 
mountains,  but  the  new  dominion  reaches  from  Puerto 
Rico  to  the  Philippines  —  more  than  half  way  around  the 
world." 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  33 

Then  we  gave  three  cheers  for  Old  Virginia  and 
Yankee  Doodle,  too,  and  three  times  three  and  a  tiger 
for  our  new  frontiers  reaching  out  into  the  farthest 
seas. 

We  went  into  the  smoking-room,  for  the  breeze  was 
chilly  and  our  blood  was  thin  from  the  months  we 
had  spent  in  the  tropics.  We  had  some  ginger-ale 
which  the  doctor  had  kindly  brought  on  board,  and 
then  we  began  to  draw  Eppes  out  on  the  subject  of  the 
expansion  of  the  colony. 

"Very  soon,"  he  continued,  "the  starving  days  of 
Newport's  News  were  over  and  forgotten,  and  the 
Indians  were  brought  into  subjection;  and  the  Pamun- 
keys  in  particular  became  friendly  and  were  given  the 
lands  in  King  William's  which  they  possess  to  this  day. 
The  Virginia  planters  grew  fat  and  rich,  and  the  world- 
winning  instinct  of  the  race  was  narcotized  with  the 
profits  of  tobacco,  and  instead  of  looking  westward  to 
the  Blue  Ridge  which  loomed  up  so  mysteriously  on  the 
horizon,  and  beyond,  they  turned  back  and  were  talking 
about  going  home,  and  were  even  going  there,  and  were 
forever  having  their  agents  send  out  brocades  and 
spinets  for  their  daughters,  and  canopied  beds  which 
they  could  not  get  into  their  houses,  and  buff  body- 
coats,  and  diamond  buckles ;  and  some  of  them  went  to 
court  at  Williamsburg  in  bath  chairs  and  cross-gartered 
like  Malvolio,  and  perhaps  without  his  excuse,  and  in 
these  dull  years  the  curiosity  which  Powhatan  had  ex- 
cited in  the  breasts  of  Smith  and  Newport,  with  his 
tale  of  the  Great  Salt  Sea  to  the  west,  subsided. 

D 


34  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

"  This  went  on  for  several  decades,  all  the  colonists 
sticking  up  to  their  knees  in  the  mud  of  the  Tidewater 
counties  and  in  the  River  Hundreds.  Now  and  again 
an  adventurous  hunter  would  stalk  the  king's  deer  in 
the  Piedmont  country,  but  never  a  man  of  them  all  had 
the  curiosity  and  the  '  sand '  to  pass  the  barrier  of  the 
Blue  Ridge  and  see  what  lay  beyond.  At  last  there  was 
sent  out  a  royal  governor  named  Alexander  Spotswood. 
He  had  lost  a  leg  fighting  in  Flanders,  and  was  wounded 
at  Blenheim  with  Marlborough,  but  otherwise  he  was  all 
there.  When  at  the  first  levee  Spotswood  saw  his  Virgin- 
ians ambling  about  in  court  costume  of  antiquated  cut 
and  taking  snuff  and  discussing  their  gouty  symptoms, 
he  told  them  very  frankly  that  he  was  ashamed  of  them. 
'  Up  my  hearties ! '  shouted  the  gruff  old  soldier,  who 
had  not  come  out  to  the  colonies  to  be  the  king-pin  of  a 
liliputian  court,  'Virginia  must  be  greater  and  larger. 
Tobacco  planting  is  all  very  well  and  a  mint  julep  is  a 
good  drink,  and  so  are  hot  waters,  but  what  about  the 
lands  beyond  the  mountains  which  stretch  out  to  the 
east,  to  the  golden  city  of  Xipangu  ? '  The  aristocratic 
planters  of  the  James  River  Hundreds  thought  that 
the  new  viceroy  was  insane,  and  wrote  back  to  London 
that  he  certainly  did  not  have  the  bel  air,  and  at  last 
they  openly  worked  to  secure  his  removal. 

"  Seeing  that  nothing  was  to  be  done  with  such  poor- 
spirited  and  gouty  individuals,  Spotswood  turned  the 
court  and  all  the  questions  of  etiquette  and  precedence 
over  to  the  lieutenant-governor  and  set  out  himself  to  ex- 
plore the  West  which,  in  some  vague  way,  like  the  navi- 


THE   GOLDEN    HORSESHOE  35 

gators  of  an  earlier  day,  he  felt  would  lead  to  the  golden 
East,  though  of  course  he  had  not  the  most  remote 
suspicion  of  the  thousands  of  miles  of  rich  land  and  the 
seas  which  lay  between  him  and  the  Eldorado  of  his 
dream.1 

"  Well,  one  fine  spring  morning,  I  think  it  was  in 
the  year  1715,  the  governor  set  out  from  William sburg, 
and  it  is  said  that  he  wagered  any  number  of  hogs- 
heads of  tobacco  he  would  find  the  Pacific  just  over 
there  behind  the  Blue  Ridge.  His  good  lady  rode 
behind  him  on  a  pillion.  The  aristocratic  planters 
remained  in  Williamsburg  or  sulked  in  their  homes 
and  made  no  secret  of  their  wish  to  have  the  rattle- 
brained governor,  who  was  trying  to  embark  Vir- 
ginia and  the  Virginians  upon  a  policy  of  adventure, 
removed,  so  it  was  with  only  his  servants  and  his  lady, 
and  without  a  single  planter  of  those  who  were  received 
at  court  that  the  governor  started  out  upon  another 
stage  of  the  journey  Westward  Ho.  However,  as 
he  travelled  on  doggedly,  without  fear  of  the  Red- 
skins or  asking  favors  of  the  lazy  whites,  some  ten 
or  twelve  young  gentlemen  one  after  another  joined 
the  party  and  asked  with  Virginian  chivalry  that  they 
be  permitted  to  serve  as  her  ladyship's  escort.  To  make 
a  long  story  short,  and  one  which  is  now  completely  for- 
gotten even  in  Virginia,  Spotswood  pushed  on  through 
the  Piedmont  country,  the  beautiful  land  that  lies  at  the 

1  In  1608,  Captain  Newport  stated  he  was  confident  the  Pacific  was 
only  six  days'  journey  from  Jamestown.  To-day  it  is  only  five.  —  THE 
EDITOR. 


36  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

foot  of  the  mountains,  and  after  much  toil  and  many 
dangers  he  succeeded  in  scaling  the  Blue  Ridge  that 
had  been  a  barrier  to  the  expansion  of  Virginia  for  so 
many  years.  -  Upon  the  highest  spur  of  the  mountain 
he  planted  the  flag,  took  formal  possession  of  all  the 
lands  beyond  in  the  name  of  the  king,  and  then  de- 
scended on  the  other  side  to  the  Shenandoah.  Here, 
on  the  banks  of  the  virgin  stream  that  flowed  he  knew 
not  whither,  Spotswood  with  great  ceremony  dubbed 
his  companions  Knights  of  the  Golden  Horseshoe,  and 
then  and  there  founded  the  Transmontane  Society  to 
which  only  those  were  eligible  who  had  turned  their 
backs  upon  the  ease  and  plenty  of  the  Tidewater 
country  and  had  crossed  the  Blue  Ridge.  To  each 
man  he  promised  as  a  recognition  of  his  services  to 
the  crown  in  enlarging  the  territory  of  the  Old  Domin- 
ion, a  golden  horseshoe  to  wear  upon  his  watch  chain 
and  upon  this  was  to  be  inscribed  the  legend,  '  Sic 
juvat  transcendere  montes! 

"  But  in  the  fall,  when  the  governor  returned  to  his 
ill-affected  city  of  William sburg,  he  learned  that  the 
purpose  of  his  adventurous  trip  had  been  misunder- 
stood or,  more  probably,  misrepresented  by  his  enemies 
of  the  stay-at-home  class,  and  as  a  sign  of  his  dis- 
pleasure, the  king,  by  Orders  in  Council,  refused  to  pay 
for  or  have  anything  to  do  with  the  golden  horseshoes 
which  the  governor  had  promised  his  companions  in 
recognition  of  their  daring.1  Spotswood  was  not  the 

1  There  is  very  little  reference  in  the  colonial  histories  to  Governor 
Spotswood's  expedition  or  to  the  "  transmontane  order  "  which  he  founded, 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  37 

man  to  be  abashed,  and  he  paid  for  the  horseshoes 
out  of  his  fortune,  and  presented  them  with  great 
formality ;  and  even  before  the  Revolution  in  Vir- 
ginia they  were  held  in  much  higher  honor  than  any 
gift  of  the  king's  making;  and  it  can  be  said  that 
this  expedition  changed  the  whole  future  of  the  colony. 
Instead  of  looking  with  lingering  regret  back  at  Eng- 
land, hundreds  crossed  the  Blue  Ridge,  and  soon  the 
battle  for  the  possession  of  Kentucky,  '  the  dark  and 
bloody  ground  '  began,  and  with  it  the  expansion  of 
the  maritime  colonies  and  the  winning  of  the  West." 

Half  in  jest,  and  half  in  earnest,  we  then  and  there 
founded,  placing  Eppes  in  the  chair,  the  Spanish  War 
branch  of  the  Golden  Horseshoe.  We  stuck  to  the  old 
device,  but  we  have  added  to  it  a  twin  screw  of  an 
ocean  steamer  in  miniature,  and  we  have  amplified  the 
legend  into,  "  These  are  the  things  that  help  to  cross 
the  mountains  and  to  sail  the  seas."  I  did  not  propose 
you  for  membership,  knowing  what  your  feelings  upon 
the  subject  of  expansion  are,  but  when  you  see  the 
error  of  your  way  I  shall  use  my  influence  as  a  founder 
to  have  you  admitted. 

Then  we  proceeded  to  our  rubber,  but  it  was  not  a 

though  Lieutenant  Eppes  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  historical  data  available. 
Campbell  in  his  "  History  of  Virginia  "  quotes  Chalmers  as  saying  that  the 
English  king  refused  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  horseshoes.  In  a  note 
Campbell  says  that  a  Mrs.  Bott  had  seen  the  horseshoe  belonging  to 
Governor  Spotswood,  and  that  it  was  small  enough  to  be  worn  on  a  watch 
chain.  About  fifty  years  ago  one  of  the  horseshoes  was  in  the  possession 
of  the  Brooke  family  of  Virginia,  but  it  has  since,  I  believe,  been  lost. 
— THE  EDITOR. 


38  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

success.  The  little  major  trumped  his  partner's  tricks, 
and  Eppes  was  always  leading  from  short  suits,  until 
at  last  we  called  it  off,  and  went  out  upon  the  deck, 
to  watch  the  grain  elevators  which  rise  to  a  towering 
height  to-day  on  the  spot  where  the  first  colonists  nearly 
perished  with  hunger. 

The  next  morning  the  doctor  came  out,  and  looked 
us  all  over  again,  more  carefully  even  than  before.  He 
seemed  uncertain  what  he  should  do,  and  when  he 
finally  went  on  shore  it  was  to  telegraph  the  facts  to 
Washington,  and  leave  the  decision  with  the  authorities 
there.  About  sundown  a  great  tug  came  out,  and  with 
it  our  permission  to  land,  and  we  all  bundled  on  shore. 
Thousands  of  people  were  out  on  the  long  pier  to  meet 
us,  and  in  one  way  or  another,  in  ambulances  and 
special  trolley  cars  or  on  foot,  we  all  reached  the  hos- 
pital. So  there  is  my  yarn,  or  as  much  of  it,  I  am 
sure,  as  you  can  stand  at  one  sitting.  Let  me  have  the 
budget  of  news  you  must  have  gathered  at  the  Club 
and  at  -the  Department,  and  bear  in  mind  that  I  am 
always  interested  in  the  movements  of  the  Twenty- 
first.  .  .  . 

THE  PALACE,  SAN  JUAN  DE  PUERTO  Rico, 
January  24,  1899. 

MY  DEAR  HERNDON:  — 

Seeing  by  the  mail  that  has  just  come  in  that  the 
Twenty-first  is  under  orders  to  sail  for  Manila,  I  hasten 
to  tell  you  that  both  your  charming  letter  and  thought- 
ful present  have  been  duly  received,  and  that  Mrs.  Gill 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  39 

is  spending  much  time  in  composing  a  letter  of  thanks, 
couched  in  terms  adequate  to  the  obligation.  For  my 
part,  I  must  thank  you  for  the  very  diplomatic  way  in 
which  you  controlled  the  surprise  you  must  have  expe- 
rienced when  you  read  in  the  papers  that  I  had  fallen 
away  from  that  noble  band  of  young  officers,  who  swore 
(I  wonder  if  we  really  were  so  foolish  as  to  swear?) 
not  to  marry  until  they  had  attained  their  majorities  — 
in  the  service,  we  meant,  and  not  in  years. 

...  I  must  confess  that  seeing  you  ordered  to  Ma- 
nila, and  reading  over  the  names  of  all  the  other  fel- 
lows who  are  out  there,  or  on  the  way,  has  made  me 
not  a  little  restless.  Sometimes  I  wish  I  were  going 
too,  only,  you  see,  I  am  beginning  to  understand  a 
little  of  what  old  Colonel  Hodson  meant  when  he 
said,  referring  to  the  eight  hostages  Mrs.  Hodson  had 
given  to  the  enemy,  "  You  see  how  I  am  situated, 
boys." 

I  was  also  glad  to  see  that  your  promotion  has  come, 
and  that  you  go  out  to  the  Philippines  with  a  captaincy. 
I  congratulate  you  and  the  company  both  very  heartily, 
though  doubtless  it  is  no  new  sensation  for  you,  as  I 
remember  you  were  in  command  of  your  company 
throughout  the  Santiago  campaign.  What  changes, 
my  son,  since  twelve  months  ago,  when  you  and  I  were 
simply  hanging  on  to  the  ragged  edge  of  the  list  of  first 
lieutenants!  I  have  been  advanced  one  hundred  and 
twenty  numbers  myself,  stepping  over  the  men  the 
Spanish  bullets  and  the  Cuban  fevers  laid  low.  With 
now  only  twenty  numbers  between  me  and  the  top  of 


40  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

the  list,  and  with  the  gray-headed  brigade  dropping  off 
so  fast  under  the  thirty  years'  service  clause,  you  had 
better  be  extremely  careful  in  addressing  your  letters, 
for  I,  too,  soon  shall  have  a  new  handle  to  my  name. 

But  you  ask  me  to  tell  you  how  it  happened,  so  here 
goes.  I  think  my  veracious,  if  somewhat  gloomy,  nar- 
rative of  the  adventures  of  an  officer  after  the  battle  of 
San  Juan  came  to  an  end  at  the  moment  when  the  quar- 
antine against  us  was  raised  and  we  went  ashore  at  old 
Fortress  Monroe,  curiously  enough,  at  the  same  place 
to  which  the  regulars  of  Scott's  and  Taylor's  armies  re- 
turned after  their  campaign  which  resulted  in  what  was 
called,  in  the  picturesque  language  of  the  day,  the  rais- 
ing of  the  stars  and  stripes  over  "the  halls  of  Monte- 
zuma." 

Whatever  may  have  been  my  physical  condition,  and 
every  now  and  then  I  would  catch  the  doctors  shaking 
their  heads  dubiously  over  my  corpus,  at  the  time,  I  cer- 
tainly was  heart-whole.  This  was  not  entirely  a  sub- 
ject of  self-congratulation.  I  can  assure  you  that,  as 
I  saw  the  feverish  interest  which  the  other  fellows  in 
my  ward  took  in  their  mail,  I  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  I  had  made  a  mistake  in  breaking  so  entirely  with 
the  soldier's  chief  occupation  in  time  of  peace,  the  mo- 
ment war  was  declared.  I  should  have  preserved,  at 
least,  one  string  to  my  bow  against  the  chance  of  my 
return  as  a  convalescent  hero.  I  merely  throw  out 
these  hints  to  you,  as  you  leave  for  the  Philippines, 
as  a  friend  who  is  concerned  in  your  welfare  and  com- 
fort. The  other  heroes  had  bouquets,  and  fruit  and 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  41 

flowers,  sent  them  daily,  and  I  had  none  —  to  the  wise 
a  word  is  sufficient. 

The  day  after  I  reached  home  was  a  Sunday.  In 
the  morning  we  walked  down  the  village  street  to 
church,  mother  leaning  very  proudly  on  my  arm  and 
father  circling  about  us  like  a  war-ship  convoying  most 
precious  argosies.  Now  and  again  he  became  the  cen- 
tre of  admiring  groups,  who  would  thrill  with  admira- 
tion and  bow  low  to  the  happy  mother  of  such  a  son ; 
and,  as  we  passed,  I  could  hear  father  say  (I  can 
hear  it  now  without  even  a  blush  or  the  slightest 
gesture  of  dissent,  so  easy  is  the  descent  of  Avernus) : 
"  My  boy  was  the  very  first  man  on  the  top  of  San 
Juan  Hill.  He  was  at  least  three  yards  ahead  of 
Colonel  Roosevelt  in  that,  the  greatest  charge  in  his- 
tory, 'not  excepting  the  rush  of  the  Old  Guard  at 
Waterloo.  Of  course  the  boy  doesn't  speak  about  it 
and  would  never  forgive  me  if  he  thought  I  men- 
tioned it,  but  I  have  heard  it  from  a  number  of  men 
who  were  there  on  the  spot."  And  so  we  swept  on 
in  triumph  down  the  village  street. 

As  we  entered  the  church  and  I  hobbled  —  still  very 
stiff -legged,  I  am  afraid  —  up  to  the  familiar  pew,  I 
found  that  we  had  arrived  quite  late.  The  old  parson 
was  reading  the  first  lesson,  and  he  looked  at  us 
rather  hard  as  we  settled  down  in  our  seats  as  quietly 
as  we  could ;  and  then,  to  my  no  small  embarrassment, 
for  I  thought  we  were  about  to  be  openly  censured, 
—  such  things  have  happened  in  our  church,  —  he  took 
off  his  gold-rimmed  spectacles,  wiped  them  carefully 


42  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

upon  his  handkerchief,  and  stared  at  us  again.  This 
time  he  evidently  satisfied  himself  there  was  no  mis- 
take, and  closing  the  great  Bible  with  a  bang,  he 
said :  — 

"  Friends,  it  has  pleased  the  Almighty  to  restore 
to  our  midst  that  Christian  soldier  for  whose  safety, 
when  exposed  to  the  dangers  of  the  deep,  the  bullets 
of  the  Spaniards,  and  the  diseases  which  lurk  in  the 
jungle,  our  prayers  were  so  earnestly  desired  and  so 
frequently  poured  forth.  I  ask  you  now  to  raise  your 
hymn  of  joy  and  thanksgiving  with  mine  and  '  Praise 
God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow.'  Let  us  sing  the 
Old  Hundred."  Then  the  whole  church  rang  with  the 
grand  words  of  the  Doxology,  and  my  mother  as  she 
rose  clutched  my  arm  and  sobbed  and  said  this  was 
the  happiest  day  of  her  life.  For  myself,  I  felt  rather 
uncomfortable.  It  dawned  on  me  for  the  first  time 
how  much  easier  and  pleasanter  it  had  been  for  us 
who  went  to  the  war,  with  all  the  excitement  and  the 
changing  scenes,  than  for  those  who  remained  behind 
at  home  to  watch  and  wait  and  pray.  Suddenly,  as 
my  eyes  wandered  around  the  building,  they  fell  upon 
a  wondrous  figure,  an  angel,  I  doubted  not,  with  her 
wings  disguised,  under  a  white  lawn  dress.  She  was 
standing  in  front  of  the  organ  loft  and  leading  the 
chorus  of  praise  and  thanksgiving,  as  angels  have 
been  sometimes  sent  down  to  raise  men  above  their 
earthly  surroundings  to  better  things.  .  .  .  Well,  she 
is  now  Mrs.  Gill,  having  proved  to  be,  as  all  good 
women  should,  just  a  little  lower  than  the  angels. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  43 

Still  there  are  times  when  I  have  uneasy  moments, 
when  I  fear  that  her  wings  will  yet  sprout.  Such  a 
moment  I  had  to-day  when  she  saw  me  reading  the 
notice  that  your  regiment  had  been  ordered  to  Ma- 
ftila.  She  asked  and  even  implored  me  to  go  too, 
saying  she  would  never  forgive  herself  if  she  stood 
for  one  moment  in  the  way  of  my  advancement;  and 
then  she  begged  me  to  go  because  she  was  sure  the 
war  was  a  holy  one,  like  the  war  in  Cuba.  However, 
I  refused  to  reopen  the  discussion,  for  it  is  a  settled 
question  with  my  family  now,  my  family,  which,  by 
the  way,  since  my  return  and,  what  was  called  in 
the  papers,  romantic  marriage,  embraces  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  within  ten  miles  of  our  home, 
that  I  must  not  volunteer  for  service  in  the  Philip- 
pines, but  wait  to  be  drafted;  and  I  am  waiting  very 
contentedly,  I  assure  you,  among  other  reasons  be- 
cause, though  I  have  only  been  down  here  at  my  new 
post  three  weeks,  I  have  discovered  very  many  in- 
teresting and,  I  believe,  useful  things  to  do.  .  .  . 

Since  this  island  passed  into  our  possession  undoubt- 
edly much  progress  has  been  made,  and  the  adminis- 
tration reformed  in  many  respects,  greatly  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  people.  It  has  been  easier,  of  course,  than 
the  somewhat  similar  task  in  Cuba  and  in  the  Philip- 
pines, because  here  we  have  not  had  to  contend,  as  in 
Cuba,  with  a  large  and  uncompromising  independence 
"party  or  a  sullen  minority  of  Peninsula  Spaniards,  who 
are  only  too  anxious  to  bring  our  policy  into  discredit. 
The  people  are  peace-loving.  They  practically  never 


44  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

made  a  serious  rebellion,  even  against  Spanish  rule,  and 
by  them,  at  least,  the  purity  of  purpose  with  which  we 
are  taking  over  the  government  of  their  island  is  not 
even  questioned.  They  have  had  the  example  and  the 
object  lesson  of  the  United  States  right  before  their 
eyes  for  a  hundred  years,  and  in  this  you  will  find  the 
distinct  advantage  we  have  over  you  fellows,  who  are 
called  upon  to  deal  with  the  Filippinos  who  have  never 
heard  of  America  or  the  Americans  except  through 
tainted  Spanish  sources. 

Indeed,  it  is  to  the  very  exalted  conception  which 
they  entertained  of  the  justice  and  the  integrity  of  our 
Government  and  the  perfect  working  of  our  adminis- 
tration that  is  due,  in  a  great  measure,  the  disappoint- 
ment and  the  unrest  so  noticeable  among  the  people 
here  during  the  last  few  months.  They  had  expected, 
the  optimists !  that  we,  with  our  wonderful  administra- 
tive machinery  and  instinct  of  government,  would  suc- 
ceed in  brushing  away,  in  a  few  weeks,  all  the  evils  of  the 
system  and  the  consequences  of  it,  that  the  Spaniards 
had  so  laboriously  built  up  in  the  course  of  centuries. 
When  our  flag  was  raised,  they  expected  to  find  their 
island  instantly  converted  into  a  terrestrial  paradise ; 
they  expected  to  hear  their  new  rulers  speaking  to  them 
with  the  voice  that  "  breathed  oVer  Eden,"  and  as,  what- 
ever our  achievement  may  be,  we  have  certainly  fallen 
short  of  this  high  standard,  they  are  correspondingly 
disappointed.  In  the  main,  I  contend  it  is  their  opti- 
mism that  is  to  blame.  At  the  same  time,  it  would  be 
idle  to  deny  that  our  administration  here  has  fallen 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  45 

short  of  the  standard  of  excellence  which  might  so 
easily  have  been  attained. 

It  would  seem  that  during  the  two  or  three  genera- 
tions that  have  elapsed  since  we  have  had  a  task  of  this 
character,  we  have  lost,  in  a  great  measure,  our  former 
skill  in  bringing  peaceably  and  contentedly  under 
our  government  a  people  of  an  alien  civilization,  and 
one  certainly  in  a  very  different  stage  of  development, 
from  our  own.  Some  of  the  administrators  sent  down 
here  have  been  strongly  imbued  with  the  idea  that  there 
are  only  two  known  methods  of  government ;  the  one, 
free  and  representative  institutions  for  white  men,  the 
other,  carpet-bag  agents,  and  reservations  and  soldiers 
for  Redskins.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  people  of  Puerto 
Rico  are  not  yet  ripe,  even  for  our  territorial  form  of 
government,  and  yet  they  are  civilized,  many  of  them 
even  cultured,  and  they  are  all  docile  and  easily  led 
when  you  know  how  to  take  them ;  but  the  happy  mean 
of  government  required,  which  many  of  us  vaguely  see, 
has  not  been  inaugurated  yet  by  the  responsible  author- 
ities. 

The  mistakes  that  we  have  hitherto  made  are  due, 
in  a  great  measure,  to  a  certain  meddling  spirit,  and  a 
failure  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  Puerto  Ricans, 
like  every  other  people,  have  peculiar  customs,  and  even 
institutions,  which  ought  to  be  put  away  gently,  and 
handled  with  gloves,  if  it  be  found  impossible  to  retain 
them.  I  will  illustrate  the  point  I  am  attempting  to 
make  by  telling  you  of  one  or  two  farcical  incidents 
which  have  done  more  to  make  a  naturally  easy-going 


46  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

population  stubborn  and  suspicious,  and  less  assured  as 
to  their  future,  than  though  we  had  gone  in  right  and 
left  and  committed  high-handed  outrages,  —  this,  in  view 
of  their  training  under  Spain,  they  would  at  least  have 
understood.  From  time  immemorial  in  Puerto  Rico  the 
oxen  have  drawn  carts  and  other  burdens  by  means  of 
broad  bands  around  their  foreheads,  and  the  women, 
like  women  of  all  tropical  islands,  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  wearing  what  we  may  dignify  with  the  name 
of  low-necked  bodices,  while  picking  coffee-berries  and 
working  in  the  fields.  Now  can  you  imagine  what  one, 
and  in  many  respects  the  best  of  our  district  governors, 
"  ordered  and  decreed "  under  these  circumstances  ? 
Well,  he  ordered  that  all  oxen  should  be  yoked  as  they 
are  in  the  United  States,  and  that  the  women  working 
in  the  fields  should  be  clothed  as  our  women  are  in  the 
temperate  zone.  Of  course  it  has  been  found  impossi- 
ble to  enforce  these  regulations,  and  the  only  result 
has  been  an  intense  irritation  among  the  people  who 
see  their  ancient  customs  and  manners,  which  even  the 
Spaniards  respected,  proscribed  by  the  Northern  invader. 
We  haven't  put  any  of  them  to  death,  or  "  bled  "  them, 
or  sent  them  to  African  prisons,  but  we  have  bothered 
them,  an  unpardonable  offence  in  the  tropics,  and  the 
result  is,  that  in  less  than  six  months  we  have  quite 
lost  our  halo  as  saviours,  and  have  come  to  be  regarded 
almost  as  invaders.  Still,  I  am  glad  to  say  that  no 
serious  breach  has  taken  place,  and  nothing  has  been 
done  yet  that  cannot  be  remedied.  The  fact  that  the 
markets  which  were  open  to  them  under  Spanish  rule 


THE   GOLDEN    HORSESHOE  47 

are  now  closed,  and  that  we  have  not  opened  up  new 
ones  for  them  is  a  cause  of  the  great  economic  distress 
throughout  the  island,  which  should  be  looked  into  the 
moment  Congress  meets. 

It  is  difficult  for  me  to  think  of  you  on  the  wing  and 
I  not  with  you.  We  have  travelled  so  much  together 
since  1895,  when,  you  remember,  we  started  out  upon 
our  one  year's  leave  after  ten  years  of  service,  down  to 
that  feverish  moment  when  we  were  hurried  away  by 
wire  from  Leavenworth,  to  catch  up  -with  our  regiments 
at  Tampa,  that  it  is  hard  to  go  our  different  ways  now. 
In  the  war  we  were  separated  by  a  Spanish  bullet,  and 
on  our  long  vacation  we  were  parted  by  that  practical 
tendency  "to  improve  each  shining  hour  "  with  which,  in 
your  childhood,  you  must  have  been  inoculated  by  some 
busy  bee.  You  went  back  from  Switzerland  to  New 
York,  and  spent  the  best  part  of  your  vacation  in  study- 
ing law,  while  I  prowled  all  around  the  world,  seeing 
new  countries  and  becoming  acquainted  with  other  men 
and  strange  manners — you  have  always  thought  that 
you  acted  wisely,  and  I  have  never  regretted  my  choice ; 
why,  I  think  you  will  understand  better  after  your  voy- 
age around  the  world,  for  I  see  that  your  transport  is 
ordered  to  Manila  via  Suez,  and  I  am  glad  of  it.  Every 
new  scene  that  you  pass  through,  every  strange  port 
at  which  you  touch,  will  help  convince  you  that  my 
year  was  not  so  badly  spent,  after  all,  though  the 
knowledge  I  acquired  was  not  published  to  the  world 
with  a  university  degree.  You  will  learn  now,  better 
than  any  arguments  of  mine  could  have  taught  you, 


48  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

that  I  was  not  merely  "  sightseeing,"  or  that,  as  you 
have  often  maintained,  I  could  have  secured  the  same 
information  and  perhaps  the  same  enjoyment,  and  cer- 
tainly with  less  expense,  by  a  few  afternoons  spent  in 
the  alcoves  of  the  Astor  library. 

The  great  lesson  of  my  journey,  and  the  profit  of  it, 
is  the  knowledge  which  I  acquired  of  the  fact  that 
there  is  another  world  outside  of  our  own  where  there 
are  race  tendencies  in  development  and  struggles  in 
embryo,  which  must  soon  become  international,  and 
other  signs  and  wonders  of  the  times,  which  should  be 
observed  and  closely  studied  by  every  American. 

Since  the  treaty  of  Paris  gave  us  a  foothold  in  Asia 
I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  spending  some  of  my  spare 
time  almost  every  day  in  turning  over  the  worm-eaten 
pages  of  an  old  seventeenth-century  Mappe  Mondi 
which  I  bought  years  ago  for  a  few  sous  at  a  stall  on 
the  bookseller's  quai  in  Paris.  One  of  the  maps,  which 
is  my  chief  delight,  pictures  the  coast  of  North  America, 
and  while  not  quite  geographically  correct,  is  certainly 
historically  accurate.  Here  you  have  the  continent  of 
North  America  as  it  was  then.  Upon  its  ample  surface 
are  marked  out  the  possessions  of  the  king  of  France, 
of  the  king  of  England,  of  the  king  of  Spain,  the  terri- 
tory of  the  king  of  Sweden,  and  the  colonies  of  the  Low 
Countries.  They  were  all  striving  for  the  empire  of 
the  West,  and  after  many  struggles  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
almost  the  last  on  the  field,  remained  in  possession, 
because  the  most  capable  and  efficient. 

I  think  I  hear  you  saying  that  this  is  all  very  interest- 


THE   GOLDEN    HORSESHOE  49 

ing,  but  that,  after  all,  it  is  ancient  history,  and  that  the 
colonial  era  is  closed  and  not  likely  to  be  reopened.  To 
convince  you  of  your  error,  I  only  ask  that  you  keep 
your  eyes  open  as  you  sail  along  the  east  coast  of  Asia. 
There  you  will  see  in  progress  the  same  struggle  for 
supremacy  of  which,  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  our  Atlantic  coast  was  the  scene.  There  you 
will  see  the  colonial  possessions  of  the  Dutch,  the  Portu- 
guese, and  the  French,  the  English,  the  Germans,  and 
the  Russians.  They  are  all  in  open  rivalry  for  commer- 
cial advantages,  and  little  by  little  encroaching  upon 
the  lands  of  the  weaker  and  the  inferior  races,  who  are 
as  incapable  of  maintaining  themselves  under  the  con- 
ditions of  life  that  obtain  to-day,  as  were  the  North 
American  Indians  in  the  era  that  has  closed.  You  will 
observe  that  the  Swedes  have  dropped  out  entirely,  and 
that  the  Dutch  and  the  Portuguese  have  lived  their 
time,  and  that  the  new  races,  the  Russians  in  Siberia, 
and  the  Americans  in  the  Philippines,  have  more  than 
taken  their  place.  To  me,  Asia  to-day  is  in  the  posi- 
tion of  Penelope  of  old  —  to  her,  many  suitors  come, 
many  of  them  rough,  uncouth,  peremptory,  and  all  of 
them  grasping  and  avaricious — but  you  must  remember 
that  her  dowry  is  not  rocky  sea-girt  Ithaca,  but  a  conti- 
nent with  untold  wealth  behind  it  and  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  millions  of  people  only  too  anxious  to  be 
enlightened.  Keep  your  eyes  open,  take  notes  of  what 
you  see,  and  then  tell  me  which  of  the  suitors  will 
string  and  bend  the  bow  of  Ulysses. 

I  myself  am  wholly  confident,  that  the  future  of  the 


50  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

East  is  ours  by  the  same  reason  and  for  the  same  causes 
that  we  secured  the  supremacy  in  the  West.  Perhaps 
it  is  written,  that  again  English  and  Americans  shall 
stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  struggle  for  the  Eastern 
markets,  in  the  same  way  that  they  fought  as  allies  at 
Quebec  and  Louisburg  against  the  French,  and  at 
Carthagena  and  Havana  against  the  Spanish.  I  know 
the  objections  which  are  on  your  tongue's  end,  they  are 
so  obvious ;  but  reserve  your  opinion  —  say  nothing  until 
you  have  seen  more  of  the  tendencies  of  the  times  and 
those  currents  which  are  setting  so  strongly  in  the  East- 
ern world  to-day,  and  then  I  think  you  will  admit  that 
stranger  and  certainly  much  more  unnatural  things 
have  happened  than  this  Anglo-American  alliance  for 
the  freedom  of  trade,  the  advance  of  civilization,  and 
the  peace  of  the  world. 

COLOMBO,  CEYLON,  April  5,  1899. 
U.  S.  TRANSPORT,  Sherman. 

MY  DEAR  GILL  :  — 

After  my  silence  of  the  past  few  weeks,  added  to 
your  previous  experiences,  you^will,  I  fear,  place  me  in 
the  category  of  those  who  are  born  bad  correspondents. 
I  wish,  however,  to  point  out  to  you  that  on  this  voyage 
around  the  world,  I  have  at  least  the  semblance  of  an 
excuse  for  not  writing.  With  each  new  port  we  touch 
at,  and  so  with  every  opportunity  to  mail  a  letter,  I  ask 
myself :  "  Would  it  not  be  better  to  wait  until  the  next 
station  ?  Even  then  the  letter  will  reach  Puerto  Rico  as 
promptly  via  the  Pacific  as  if  I  should  send  it  back  now 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  51 

over  Europe,  and  then  there  is  always  the  chance  of 
having  an  interesting  experience."  But  here  goes,  if 
only  to  break  the  ice,  though  nothing  has  happened, 
and  we  are  only  beginning  to  draw  near  those  interest- 
ing countries  about  which  you  write  so  enthusiastically. 

Please  be  assured  that  in  regard  to  the  offence  of 
matrimony,  if  offence  it  be,  all  is  forgiven.  Of  course 
she  loved  you  for  the  dangers  you  had  passed  through, 
and  I  can  well  understand  flesh  and  blood  succumbing 
to  the  temptation  you  describe.  If  we  had  been  there, 
we  would  all  doubtless  have  joined  in  the  Doxology, 
and  perhaps  fallen  in  love,  too,  so  it  is  just  as  well,  on 
many  accounts,  that  we  were  not  there.  There  is  only 
one  thing,  however,  I  could  not  forgive  you,  and  that 
is,  if  you  should  apply  for  service  out  here.  Don't 
volunteer,  and  don't  even  allow  yourself  to  be  drafted 
into  this  Philippine  business,  and  above  all  things  turn 
a  deaf  ear  to  the  "  spell  binders  "  of  the  Golden  Horse- 
shoe stripe.  The  truth  about  the  situation  is,  that  our 
humanitarian  war  has  gotten  us  into  an  unfortunate 
scrape,  and  much  good  blood,  worthy  of  a  better  cause, 
I  think,  will  have  to  be  spilled  before  we  can  hope  to  get 
out  of  it.  The  only  way  to  extricate  ourselves,  I  should 
say,  is  by  adopting  in  the  East  Indies  the  cold-blooded 
and  barbarous  methods  of  warfare  which  we  forbade  the 
Spaniards  to  use  against  their  rebels  in  the  West 
Indies. 

Mind  you,  I  do  not  for  a  moment  presume  to  consult 
my  personal  inclination;  a  soldier  is  and  of  necessity 
must  be,  blindly  and  thoughtlessly  obedient  to  his 


52  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

orders,  but  if  I  did,  I  would  be  almost  anywhere  else 
than  where  I  am.  Not  only  in  this  regiment  but  in 
every  other,  I  take  it,  we  are  almost  to  a  unit  against 
the  war,  and  this  is  of  course  all  the  more  remarkable 
because  an  army  is  always  the  nucleus  of  the  war 
party ;  war  is  the  excuse  for  its  very  existence,  and 
with  us,  if  anything,  the  desire  for  a  fight,  human 
nature  being  what  it  is,  should  be  stronger  than  any- 
where else,  for  in  no  army  in  the  world  is  promotion 
more  slow  and  the  prospect  of  advancement  more  hope- 
less than  in  our  own  while  peace  is  maintained.  As  a 
symptom  of  this  feeling,  I  only  wish  you  could  have  seen 
the  letter  to  the  President,  which  old  Major  Royle  threat- 
ened to  enclose,  when  he  sent  in  his  application  for  retire- 
ment under  the  thirty  years'  service  clause.  He  said 
that  the  feeling  in  the  army  was,  that  these  United  States 
do  and  of  right  ought  to  break  off  short  at  Sandy  Hook, 
on  one  side,  and  at  the  Presidio  Barracks  on  the  other. 
He  had  fought  for  niggers,  he  said,  in  Cuba,  and  while 
he  would  like  that  better,  he  was  afraid  he  was  too  old 
to  fight  against  them  in  the  Philippines,  and  so  availing 
himself  of  the  provisions  of  the  army  regulation,  he 
respectfully  submitted  his  request  to  be  placed  on 
the  retired  list.  We  persuaded  Royle  to  omit  the  en- 
closure, but  there  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  the  army 
more  generally  endorses  his  platform  than  they  do  the 
one  upon  which  the  commander-in-chief  is  at  present 
standing,  if  only  with  one  leg. 

At  Malta  we  had  a  very  pleasant  time ;  all  the  high 
officials  turned  out  to  receive  us,  and  we  were  very  hos- 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  53 

pitably  entertained,  and  the  same  can  be  said  of  every 
British  port  at  which  we  have  touched.  At  the  dinner, 
which  the  governor  gave  us,  that  worthy  man  went  so 
far  as  to  publicly  proclaim  his  Royal  Nibs,  King  George, 
the  greatest  fool  that  ever  lived  and  compared  him  to 
the  ignorant  savage  of  the  fable  who  threw  away  a 
pearl  without  price,  "richer  than  all  his  tribe."  But 
he  concluded,  "  Happily  the  bitter  words  and  the  hard 
blows  exchanged  have  not  only  been  forgiven,  but  for- 
gotten, and  to-day  the  whole  world,  amazed  and  a  little 
alarmed,  too,  sees  the  two  great  kindred  nations,  so 
long  held  asunder,  advancing  toward  a  common  goal 
with  a  common  purpose,  which  is  the  spread  of  civili- 
zation and  Christianity  the  world  over." 

We  looked  as  modest  as  we  could  while  all  the  pleas- 
ant things  were  being  said,  but  I  could  not  help  won- 
dering how  times  have  changed,  and  if  it  really  was 
only  thirty-five  years  ago  that  the  Trent  incident  took 
place  and  the  two  kindred  peoples  stood  on  the  brink  of 

war.     When  called  upon  to  respond,  little  Colonel  S 

looked  rather  scared,  not  at  all  as  he  looked  when  he 
led  us  up  San  Juan  Hill,  and  for  a  moment  we  thought  he 
was  going  to  turn  tail,  and  hide  in  the  jungle  of  palms 
which  surrounded  the  banqueting  hall;  but  he  didn't, 
and  when  it  was  over,  I  can  tell  you  the  honors  were 
easy,  as  far  as  soft  soap  was  concerned,  and  the  British- 
ers looked  positively  radiant,  one  and  all.  It  was  such 
a  symposium  of  good  feeling  and  good  fellowship  that 
even  George  III.  was  not  excluded,  at  least  not  by  our 
colonel,  who  said  he  always  thought  that  the  king  was  a 


54  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

much  maligned  man,  and  that  of  course  the  war  would 
never  have  happened  if  it  had  only  been  delayed  in 
some  way  until  the  day  of  fast  steamers  and  inter- 
national yacht  races  —  tommy  rot  of  course  —  but  that 
was  what  we  were  there  for. 

I  am  not  a  Fenian,  and  I  like  the  average  Britisher 
well  enough,  —  at  times  he  seems  almost  human  to  me, 
—  and  whenever  I  bump  up  against  a  Frenchman,  a 
Dago,  or  a  Dutchman,  I  am  inclined  to  think  with  Huck 
Finn's  friend  Jim,  if  the  Frenchman  is  a  man,  "why 
don't  he  talk  like  a  man  ? "  The  English  are  fair  and 
square,  though  of  course  always  on  the  lookout  for  their 
own  interests;  but  if  you  get  into  a  fight,  and  one  of  them 
is  with  you,  he  is  sure  to  be  all  there,  and  you  need 
never  worry  about  that  flank ;  and  as  they  have  been 
up  against  us  twice,  I  guess  they  have  the  same  feeling 
where  we  are  concerned ;  but  this  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  come  forward  and  help  them  pull  the  chestnuts 
of  their  Eastern  Empire  out  of  the  fire ;  and  while  there 
are  some  who  don't  or  won't  see  it,  that  is  exactly  what 
we  are  doing  in  the  Philippines.  I  am  perfectly  willing 
to  let  bygones  be  bygones,  including  the  Alabama  and 
the  other  Confederate  cruisers,  and  I  am  grateful  or 
rather  appreciative  of  the  way  the  Britishers  stood  pat  all 
through  the  Spanish  war  and  prevented  "  Dutch  Billy," 
as  the  soldiers  call  the  German  Emperor,  from  putting 
his  finger  in  the  pie ;  but  foreign  policies  are  not  affairs 
of  the  heart,  and  what  Washington  said  about  entan- 
gling alliances  holds  as  good  to-day  as  it  did  one  hundred 
years  ago.  No  one  with  Dewey,  and  certainly  no  one  in 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  55 

Washington  at  the  time,  wanted  the  Philippines,  and  we 
became  saddled  with  that  elephant  before  we  well  knew 
where  we  were  at.  Because  we  had  fought  a  success- 
ful naval  battle  in  Manila  Bay  was  certainly  no  manner 
of  reason  why  we  should  land  and  become  burdened 
with  one  thousand  swampy,  pest-ridden  islands,  in- 
fested by  murderous  Malays,  all  running  "  amuck." 
No,  Dewey  was  ordered  to  destroy  the  Spanish  fleet 
in  the  Philippines,  because  as  long  as  it  remained  afloat 
it  was  a  menace  to  our  Pacific  coast.  Once  the  fleet  was 
destroyed,  and  we  held  the  command  of  the  sea,  what  in 
the  world  had  we  to  fear  from  the  Spanish  troops  cooped 
up  in  Manila,  who  had  all  they  could  do  in  fighting 
the  Tagals  ?  No  ;  our  business  was  finished  when  the 
Spanish  vessels  were  all  sunk  or  had  struck  their  colors, 
and  what  Dewey  should  have  done,  was  to  leave  a  gun- 
boat or  two  on  the  lookout  for  Spanish  reinforcements 
and  steam  with  the  rest  of  his  fleet  toward  Spain,  and 
before  he  reached  Suez  the  war  would  have  ended,  that 
is,  two  months  sooner  than  it  did.  No,  we  landed  troops  ' 
in  the  first  heat  of  the  Dewey  delirium  and  from  a  de- 
sire, though  it  was  not  avowed,  to  show  our  appreciation 
to  the  Britishers  for  their  attitude  toward  us.  You  see 
the  English  in  the  East  are  in  a  pretty  tight  place,  and 
they  know  it.  The  balance  of  power  out  there  is  going 
steadily  against  them.  Russia  made  such  rapid  strides 
across  Siberia,  that  now  you  see  she  is  comfortably  in- 
stalled in  Manchuria,  the  Regent's  Sword  Peninsula,  and 
in  Corea.  Japan  is  fast  becoming  a  first-class  power, 
and  nobody  knows  exactly  what  her  game  is.  Then 


56  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

there  is  the  triple  alliance  for  the  Far  East,  of  Russia, 
Germany,  and  France.  While  they  would  have  you  be- 
lieve that  their  purpose  is  merely  to  curb  the  vaulting 
ambition  of  Japan,  this  coalition  is  unquestionably  di- 
rected mainly  against  British  commerce  and  British 
influence.  It  is  a  strong  team,  and  things  are  certainly 
going  against  our  cousins  out  here,  but  that  is  none  of 
our  business,  and  we  are  certainly  not  called  upon  to 
_help  them  out  of  their  difficulties. 

To  me  it  is  clear,  that  the  occupation  of  the  Philip- 
pines will  let  us  in,  not  only  for  a  series  of  little  wars 
with  these  gentle  savages  themselves,  but  we  shall  be 
compelled  to  take  a  part  in  all  the  Far  Eastern  troubles. 
We  shall  find  ourselves  no  longer  purely  an  American 
power,  but  an  Asiatic  power,  and  a  European  power  as 
well.  There  will  not  be  a  contention  or  a  dispute  going 
on  in  the  wide  world  which  will  not,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, affect  our  interests,  or  to  which  we  can  remain 
indifferent,  and  we  come  in  for  all  this,  simply  because, 
at  an  important  juncture  in  our  history,  there  wasn't 
one  cool-headed  man  in  authority  who  had  the  courage 
to  oppose  the  popular  cry  for  expansion,  and  the  political 
foresight  to  look  ahead,  and  to  save  us  from  taking  the 
momentous  step  we  did  with  such  a  light  heart. 

As  I  read  the  papers  I  sometimes  ask  myself,  What 
have  we  done  with  those  cardinal  principles  of  our 
public  law  or  diplomacy  which  were,  you  will  remem- 
ber, that  the  robber  age  is  closed,  and  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  the -Bright  of  conquest.  Here,  at  the  very  first 
opportunity,  ftncPEhough  in  the  declaration  of  war  we 


* 

THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  57 

went  out  of  our  way  to  proclaim  the  unselfishness  of 
our  purpose,  and  we  did  not  covet  an  acre  of  the 
enemy's  territory,  we  have  worked  the  right  of  con- 
quest for  all  it  is  worth  ;  we  do  not  even  observe  the 
rules  of  the  game  as  (there  being  honor  among  thieves) 
the  more  practised  robbers  do,  for  Manila  was  still 
in  possession  of  the  Spaniards  when  the  articles  of 
capitulation  were  signed  in  Washington,  and  so  our 
claim  to  the  place  has  not  even  the  slender  support 
of  right  by  conquest.  We  are  there  and  we  stay  there 
by  the  right  of  superior  force  and  no  other. 

I  am  afraid  you  will  find  me  rather  declamatory, 
and  that  this  letter  in  which  I  meant  simply  to  say 
good-by  will  sound  like  a  stump  speech.  I  feel  very 
earnestly  about  the  matter,  and  I  have  studied  it  some- 
what carefully,  and  I  think  as  a  general  rule  you 
rampant  expansionists  have  not.  I  shall  do  my  full 
duty  in  the  Philippines,  but  I  am  glad  I  shall  only  have 
to  obey  and  not  to  direct. 

I  would,  however,  not  be  a  faithful  reporter  of  what 
I  see,  and  hear,  if  I  did  not  admit  that  of  course  there 
is  another  side  to  the  picture,  and  that  every  day  some 
of  those  who  sail  on  the  Sherman  are  becoming  more 
pronounced  in  their  imperialistic  views,  as  I  call  them. 
Curiously  enough  our  skipper,  a  down  east  Yankee,  and 
a  very  sharp,  shrewd  fellow,  who  has  sailed  these 
Eastern  seas,  man  and  boy,  for  forty  years,  is  the  head 
of  the  expansionists  on  board. 

As  we  came  into  Colombo,  and  long  before  we 
dropped  anchor,  I  should  tell  you  that  our  ship  was  sur- 


58  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

rounded  by  a  great  number  of  boys,  some  in  the  water 
swimming  like  fish,  others  in  dugouts,  and  curious  look- 
ing little  catamarans ;  they  came  out  to  us  shouting, 
"  Heb  a  dive,  sir  ?  "  and  to  ingratiate  themselves  in  our 
favor,  they  sang  and  played  upon  reed  pipes,  "  Yankee 
Doodle  Dandy "  and  "  Dixie "  and  the  "  Stars  and 
Stripes  "  until  it  made  you  laugh,  and  get  a  little  warm, 
too,  about  the  heart.  Now  will  you  believe  me,  when  I 
tell  you  that  what  I  considered  simply  an  amusing 
exhibition  of  what  the  sea  urchins  of  Ceylon  will  do 
for  pennies,  the  skipper  regarded  as  an  event  of  the 
deepest  political  significance  ?  A  few  minutes  later  I 
heard  him  holding  forth  in  the  smoking  room  much 
as  follows :  "  I  have  sailed  these  seas  forty  years,  and 
I  have  heard  niggers  and  Chinamen,  and  nearly  all 
the  Eastern  breeds  sing  '  Rule  Britannia '  or  the  '  Mar- 
sellaisey,'  and  even  a  Dutch  jig  at  times,  but  never  an 
American  tune,  not  once,  until  to-day,  and  do  you  know 
what  it  means  ?  Why,  it  means  that  this  Philippine  war, 
even  if  the  islands  themselves  are  not  worth  a  pinch 
of  snuff,  is  a  good  advertisement,  and  a  notice  to  all 
that  nobody  wants  to  tread  on  the  tail  of  Uncle  Sam's 
coat,  not  even  'Dutch  Billy,  and  that  Americans  have 
got  to  be  treated  on  the  dead  level,  or  there  will  be 
trouble.  A  great  protection  it  is  for  trade  to  have  a 
man-of-war  poking  into  the  out-of-the  way  ports  of  the 
world  and  seeing  that  none  of  our  citizens  are  being  dis- 
criminated against,  and  that  is  what  we  never  have  en- 
joyed until  now." 

I  confess  I  did  not  quite  follow  the  skipper's  line 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  59 

of  argument,  but  I  would  not  be  quite  frank  if  I  did 
not  admit  that  the  little  I  have  seen  of  what  British 
rule  has  accomplished  in  India  and  Ceylon  has  im- 
pressed me  deeply,  and  removed  an  erroneous  opinion 
I  had  upon  the  subject.  They  are  doing  every  day, 
and  they  are  doing  it  better  every  day,  the  task 
the  great  Moguls  made  a  mess  of,  and  they  are 
avoiding  the  rocks  which  all  the  great  invaders  of 
India,  from  the  days  of  Alexander  down  to  Dupleix, 
came  to  grief  upon.  The  government  of  this  great 
empire  is  practically  carried  on  without  noticeable  fric- 
tion or  strain  by  about  nine  hundred  civil  servants  with 
a  very  small  army  in  reserve  composed  to  the  extent 
of  two-thirds,  at  least,  of  native  troops.  This  is  very 
conclusive  evidence  to  my  mind  that  the  great  majority 
of  the  people  of  India  regard  British  rule  as  salutary 
and  for  the  best  interests  of  all  concerned ;  but  there 
is  still  a  more  important  lesson,  I  think,  that  India  can 
teach  us,  if  we  must  go  in  for  imperialism  and  the  devel- 
opment of  colonies.  In  the  beginning,  as  you  know, 
India  was  opened  up  by  agents  of  English  trading 
companies,  and  was  soon  handed  over  by  the  English 
Government  to  be  the  monopoly  of  the  East  India 
Company.  This  corporation  was  formed  not  to  civilize 
or  to  preach  the  Gospel,  or  in  fact  to  do  anything  but 
to  make  money  out  of  the  natives,  and  to  declare  big 
dividends  for  the  nabobs  of  the  Indian  trade  who  now 
only  survive  in  the  pages  of  Thackeray,  and  the  corpo- 
ration failed  in  this  purpose  utterly  ;  under  its  auspices 
the  trade  between  India  and  Great  Britain  remained 


60  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

insignificant,  and  the  holding  of  India  as  a  business 
venture  proved  a  complete  failure.  Then  the  exclu- 
sively money-making  idea  was  abandoned,  and  in  the 
proclamation  by  which  the  government  was  transferred 
from  the  corporation  to  the  crown,  which  for  the  good 
of  India  and  the  British  Empire  happened  in  1858, 
Queen  Victoria  said,  "  We  hold  ourselves  bound  to  the 
natives  of  our  Indian  territory  by  the  same  obligations 
of  duty  which  bind  us  to  all  our  subjects." 

That  was  the  true  policy,  the  honest  policy,  and  it  has 
paid  in  pounds,  shilling,  and  pence,  as  well  as  in  every 
other  way.  The  volume  of  trade  between  the  two 
countries  has  grown  to  be  enormous,  it  is  on  the  in- 
crease, and  seems  capable  of  almost  unlimited  expan- 
sion. To-day  England  sends  more  of  her  exports  to 
India  than  to  any  other  country,  with  the  exception  of 
the  United  States,  and  she  imports  more  from  India 
than  from  any  countries,  with  the  exception  of  the 
United  States  and  France.  I  noticed  also,  as  we  passed 
through  the  canal,  that  England  is  receiving  an  eco- 
nomic compensation  for  her  splendid  work  in  Egypt, 
a  task  which  seemed  so  utterly  hopeless,  when  she 
took  hold  and  France  "  scuttled."  In  the  short  space 
of  ten  years  of  good  honest  government,  English  rule 
has  considerably  more  than  doubled  both  the  purchas- 
ing and  the  consuming  power  of  the  Egyptians,  and  I 
was  glad  to  see,  for  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire, 
that  English  trade  had  greatly  profited  by  the  improved 
conditions,  for  while  it  is  an  open  market,  England  gets 
three-fifths  of  all  Egyptian  exports,  and  furnishes  two- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  61 

fifths  of  all  Egyptian  imports.  So  in  one  respect  I  must 
change  my  opinion.  Certainly  trade  follows  the  flag 
where  that  flag  has  become  a  symbol,  the  world  over, 
for  the  maintenance  of  law  and  order,  and  honest 
dealing  with  all.  A  flag  like  that  of  Spain  puts  trade  to 
flight,  the  English  flag  fosters  and  develops  it.  ... 

With  us  on  board  time  passes  slowly  but  pleasantly 
enough.  It  is  only  since  I  have  been  on  board  ship, 
cooped  up  with  the  men  and  so  getting  to  know  them 
better  than  is  possible  at  an  army  post,  that  I  have  been 
able  to  form  anything  like  a  true  estimate  of  the  cost  of 
that  awful  Santiago  campaign.  There  are  with  us  now, 
not  more  than  1 5  per  cent  of  the  men  who  went  to  Cuba 
six  months  ago;  the  fevers  and  dysentery,  and  other 
diseases  consequent  upon  exposure,  have  done  for  the 
rest.  The  remaining  85  per  cent  of  our  men  are  greener 
and  more  awkward  than  the  average  volunteer  recruit, 
and  we  shall  have  a  time  in  getting  them  into  shape  ;  but 
the  physical  material  is  good,  and  the  soldierly  spirit  is 
there,  and  so  in  the  end  we  shall  be  all  right ;  yet  even 
among  the  enlisted  men,  who  do  not  as  a  rule  think  over- 
much, there  is  apparent  a  feeling  of  disappointment  that 
they  should  be  sent  out  to  the  Philippines  to  fight  niggers. 

Such  a  thirst  for  knowledge  as  these  fellows  have,  I 
never  came  across ;  the  Cuban  campaign  took  us  rather 
by  surprise,  but  now  they  are  prepared,  every  man  jack 
of  them  to  write  a  book  about  the  approaching  campaign, 
and  to  illustrate  it  with  his  own  photographs.  They 
are  loaded  down  with  Spanish  grammars,  and  Tagal 
text-books,  and  they  hammer  away  upon  these  new 


6a  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

tongues,  until  our  deck  echoes  with  as  many  strange 
cries  as  a  Peace  Congress.  For  myself  and  the  officers' 
mess,  I  bought  at  Malta  everything  available  bearing 
upon  East  Asia  from  Yule's  "  Marco  Polo  "  to  Curzon's 
"Travels";  he  is  the  present  viceroy  of  India,  you 
know,  and  has  recently  distinguished  himself  by  hail- 
ing the  Hindus  as  his  long-separated,  long-estranged 
Aryan  brethren  !  Not  to  look  too  exclusively  through 
British  spectacles,  we  have  a  large  volume  containing 
the  Portuguese  Archives  in  the  East,  recently  collected 
and  published  by  the  British  India  office,  and  we  have 
poor  Fra  Juan  de  la  Concepcion's  ideas  and  data,  I  am 
afraid  more  of  "the  former  than  the  latter,  regarding 
the  Spanish  Empire  in  the  East,  the  ruins  of  which  we 
shall  soon  see.  From  Bremen  and  Hamburg  we  have 
several  volumes  published  by  the  German  Colonial  Men- 
schen,  in  which  they  set  forth,  in  thes  most  barefaced 
way,  their  recent  robbery  of  Kaio-Chau  from  China. 
Of  the  French  we  have  the  works  of  Paul  Bert,  Lanes- 
san,  Gamier,  Harmand,  and  last,  but  not  least,  that 
volume  of  Prince  Henry  of  Orleans,  in  which  he  im- 
plores his  countrymen  to  become  Asiatic.  We  are  all 
reading  hard,  and  when  we  once  get  around  the  "  point " 
as  the  doughboys  call  the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  the 
panorama  of  the  east  coast  stretches  out  before  us,  we 
hope  to  know  something  about  it. 

P.S.  April  7. 

This  morning  the  news  came  in,  just  an  hour  before 
we  sailed,  of  Colonel  Egbert's  gallant  death  in  the  ad- 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  63 

vance  upon  Malolos.  I  cannot  very  well  describe  to 
you  what  a  painful  impression  the  news  has  made  upon 
every  officer. ori  board.  Bismarck  did  not  think  the 
Cameroons,  in  Africa,  worth  the  bones  of  one  of  his 
grenadiers,  and  there  is  not  a  man  with  us  who  would 
have  given  this  gallant  soldier  for  a  thousand  islands 
such  as  the  Philippines.  It  is  pitiful  to  think  of  such  a 
man  being  wasted  in  fighting  with  such  an  enemy.  You 
know,  better  than  I,  what  Egbert  did  in  the  advance 
upon  San  Juan.  He  was  more  at  home  and  more  suc- 
cessful there  in  the  dark  jungle  and  under  the  enemy's 
fire,  than  in  pressing  his  claims  for  recognition  at  the  War 
Department.  I  will  tell  you,  however,  what  we  saw  of 
him  that  day,  and  I  think  it  stamps  the  man  better  than 
what  he  did  at  the  front.  When  the  blood  is  up  and 
the  enemy  stands  before  you,  the  flag  floats  overhead 
and  beckons  you  on,  any  man,  not  an  arrant  coward,  can 
and  will  join  in  the  charge ;  but  I  have  always  thought 
that  the  true  soldierly  qualities  shine  out  best  when  the 
hot  fit  is  over,  and  wounded,  and  perhaps  defeated,  an 
officer  is  called  upon  to  face  the  situation.  What  he 
said  and  what  he  did  and  how  he  acted,  were  so  abso- 
lutely characteristic  of  Egbert's  cheerful  devotion  to 
duty,  that  I  shall  tell  you  the  incident ;  the  men  of  the 
Sixth  ought  to  know  it  We  were  deployed  along  the 
far  bank  of  the  San  Juan,  and  everybody  was  getting  as 
close  to  the  ground  as  he  could,  for  the  bullets  were 
falling  pretty  thick  all  around  us.  We  were  praying, 
and  I  am  afraid  doing  the  other  thing  too,  for  the  word 
to  go  in,  for  there  is  nothing  so  trying  to  the  morale  of 


64  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

men  as  to  stand  idly,  and  apparently  uselessly,  upon  the 
edge,  and  the  outer  edge,  of  the  battle,  never  getting  in 
a  shot,  and  having  any  number  of  their  fellows  knocked 
out.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  before,  the  road  in  front  of 
us  had  been  as  crowded  with  men  as  Madison  Square 
upon  an  election  night ;  b.ut  now  they  had  all  dis- 
appeared completely,  as  though  they  had  been  swal- 
lowed up  by  some  convulsion  of  nature.  What  had 
happened  we  did  not  know,  and  our  orders  forbade  us 
to  go  and  see.  We  could  only  guess,  by  the  grinding  of 
the  machine  guns  on  the  hill,  and  the  volleys  that  came 
down  and  were  answered  from  the  valley,  that  the  attack 
was  on.  Suddenly  there  appeared  before  us,  coming 
down  the  deserted  trail,  two  men  of  the  Sixth,  carry- 
ing something  heavy  between  them  in  a  tattered  army 
blanket  that  was  wet  and  red  with  blood.  "What 
have  you  got  there,  and  where  are  you  going?"  asked 
McKibbin,  for  at  first  he  thought  they  might  be  skulkers. 
The  men  were  breathless  with  the  pace  they  had  come, 
and  seeing  that  they  would  have  to  explain,  they  lowered 
their  improvised  stretcher  to  the  ground.  "Been  or- 
dered to  carry  the  colonel  to  the  rear,"  they  grunted  out. 
At  the  same  moment  the  blanket  flap  was  thrown  back, 
and  a  small,  gray-haired  man,  stripped  to  the  waist  and 
covered  with  first-aid  bandages,  looked  up  and  said  :  — 

"  Hello,  Mac.  I  guess  we've  got  them  on  the  run. 
Before  I  let  them  pack  me  off,  I  saw  that  our  fellows 
were  in  their  blockhouse." 

McKibbin  took  the  little  colonel  by  the  arm  and 
looked  him  over. 


THE   GOLDEN    HORSESHOE  65 

"  Why,  Harry  Egbert.  Wounded  of  course.  Why, 
Harry,  I  haven't  seen  you  since  —  well,  bless  my  soul, 
since  that  day  at  Bethesda  Churchyard,  you  remember, 
thirty  —  thirty-two  —  well,  no  matter,  a  good  many 
years  ago." 

"Yes,  I  remember,"  answered  Egbert,  his  eyes  flash- 
ing as  the  Civil  War  scene  rose  before  him.  "  I  was 
standing  on  a  stone  fence  in  the  hollow,  and  you,  who 
were  above  me  and  taller,  shouted,  '  Look  out,  Harry, 
the  rebs  are  loading  with  grape.'  Well,  I  jumped, 
but  as  you  remember,  not  quite  quick  enough,  and  so  I 
had  to  lie  on  my  back  for  three  months,  while  you 
fellows  were  having  all  the  fun." 

We  had  hardly  gotten  him  started  again,  —  Egbert 
was  a  hard  man  to  get  to  the  rear,  —  when  General 
Kent  came  galloping  up,  with  a  flight  of  bullets  whis- 
tling all  around  him,  and  he  led  us  up  in  person  to  the 
support  of  Hawkins,  and  that  was  the  last  I  saw  and 
now  ever  shall  see  of  Egbert.  It  was  in  this  way  the 
Twenty-first  got  into  the  fight,  but  the  regiment  never 
received  any  credit  for  it,  because  Kent  would  have 
had  to  state  that  he  led  us  into  the  fight  himself,  and  he 
was  too  modest  for  that. 

I  shall  keep  my  eyes  open  and  try  to  throw  over- 
board all  my  prejudice  and  bias,  as  you  would  call 
it,  before  we  reach  our  new  possessions  and  that  east 
coast  of  Asia  you  are  so  enthusiastic  about;  but  we 
shall  have  to  accomplish  great  good  in  the  Philip- 
pines, and  the  islanders  themselves  must  work  won- 
ders, before  I  become  reconciled  to  the  sacrifice  of 


66  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

this  gallant  soldier,  not  to  speak  of  the  other  brave 
fellows  they  have  cost  us. 

U.  S.  TRANSPORT  Sherman. 
SINGAPORE,  S.  S.  April  16,  1899. 

.  .  .  Well,  here  we  are  again  with  still  another 
stage  of  our  journey  behind  us,  and,  as  usual,  we  are 
anchored  in  a  British  port  and  taking  on  board  Welsh 
coal  by  the  grace  of  John  Bull.  The  feeling  of  irri- 
tation which  even  I  experience  when  I  see  the  way 
in  which  the  English  have  nagged  out  the  new  trail 
around  the  world  and  kept  what  was  worth  having 
for  themselves,  makes  it  quite  easy  for  me  to  under- 
stand the  unspeakable  rage  of  the  French  Anglo- 
phobes  as  they  contemplate  this  spectacle.  The  port 
of  Aden,  at  which  all  vessels  bound  East  through  the 
canal  and  the  Red  Sea  have  hitherto  been  compelled, 
through  stress  of  circumstances,  to  call,  sticks  espe- 
cially in  the  craw  of  the  "frog  eaters."  Quite  recently 
a  bill  was  passed  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  practi- 
cally forcing  all  vessels  flying  the  French  flag  to  give 
Aden  the  cold  shoulder  and  to  take  on  their  coal  and 
water  at  Jibouti,  which  is  a  sand-dune  running  out 
into  the  sea,  that  has  recently  been  ceded  to  the 
French  by  their  good  friend  Menelik,  the  Negus  of 
Abyssinia.  It  would  seem,  however,  that  never  by 
any  chance  does  French  patriotism  assume  a  more 
practical  form  than,  we  shall  say,  M.  Deroulede's 
waistcoat,  embroidered  in  many  colors.  Terrific  sand- 
storms are  frequent  in  Jibouti,  which  bury  the  coal 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  67 

deposits  often  quite  out  of  sight.  The  port  itself  lies 
well  out  of  the  course  of  all  steamers,  except  those 
engaged  in  the  Madagascar  trade,  and  within  a  very 
few  years,  I  doubt  not,  this  costly  possession  will  be 
relinquished.  .  .  . 

We  were  not  favorably  impressed  by  the  Indian 
Ocean  or  the  beam  sea  roll,  which  sent  the  Sherman 
creaking  and  moaning  along  like  an  army  wagon  with 
dry  axles.  At  last,  however,  and  quite  suddenly,  the 
great,  mountainous  seas  subsided,  and  were  succeeded 
by  short,  choppy  waves  and  clashing  currents,  which, 
as  our  skipper  said,  indicated  that  we  were  entering  the 
Straits  of  Malacca,  though  as  yet  even  from  the  crows'- 
nest  up  aloft  we  made  out  no  land.  Toward  evening, 
however,  we  were  all  attracted  by  a  great  pillar  of  black 
smoke  rising  upon  our  starboard  bow,  and  soon  afterward 
we  made  a  landfall,  in  the  wooded  shores  of  Sumatra. 

"Over  there,"  said  the  skipper,  as  we  crowded  about 
him,  hungry  for  information,  "lies  Acheen,  the  coun- 
try of  a  very  black  tribe  of  Mohammedans,  who  have, 
I  can  tell  you,  cost  the  Dutch  a  pretty  penny  during 
the  last  ten  years.  All  the  profits  they  have  made 
out  of  their  Sumatra  '  rollers '  would  not  '  tote '  up  the 
$400,000,000  that  this  Acheen  war  has  cost.  There 
are  no  dollars,  or  glory  either,  for  that  matter,  in  this 
war,  and  the  Dutchmen  want  to  get  out  of  it  the 
worst  way  in  the  world;  but  the  trouble  is  there 
ain't  no  way  to  get  out,  except  by  giving  up  the 
whole  of  Sumatra;  and  when  they  think  of  the  pile 
they  have  made  out  of  Java,  and  what  they  have 


68  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

spent  in  the  sister  island  in  hope  of  similar  returns, 
they  don't  want  to  do  that." 

It  was  some  hours  before  we  left  behind  us  the  fiery 
beacon  and  the  columns  of  smoke,  which  told  us  of 
the  savage  character  of  the  war  that  is  raging  in  this 
far-away  corner  of  the  world,  the  name  of  which,  even, 
not  one  of  us  had  ever  heard  before.  We  could  not 
but  interpret  it  as  a  bad  omen,  and  wonder  whether 
our  "  little  war "  in  the  Philippines  would  cost  us  as 
much  in  men  and  money,  and  whether,  after  twenty 
years,  our  campaign  of  civilization  will  have  produced 
no  better  results  than  that  of  the  Dutch  in  Acheen. 

"  Last  year,"  concluded  the  skipper,  before  we 
dropped  the  subject,  which  was  so  suggestive  of  un- 
pleasant possibilities,  "  the  Dutch  threw  up  their  hands 
and  admitted  they  had  enough  of  fighting.  They  sent 
out  peace  commissioners  and  a  shipload  of  presents 
and  bribes,  and  there  was  a  big  powwow  off  Acheen 
Head ;  but  the  niggers,  while  they  took  all  they  could 
get,  wouldn't  stop  fighting.  Somehow,  you  know,  they 
have  gotten  to  like  it  and  couldn't  do  without  it ;  and  of 
course  they  are  'cute'  enough  to  see  that  everything 
is  going  their  way.  Then  the  Dutch  commissioners 
spent  $300,000  on  a  mosque,  as  a  peace  donation,  and 
it  was  a  beauty,  for  you  can  knock  together  a  thun- 
dering big  mosque  for  $300,000 ;  and  the  Dutch  Gov- 
ernment gave  the  High  Priest  of  Islam  a  big  bribe 
to  let  them  have  some  of  the  sacred  carpets  from  the 
Mecca  mosque  and  a  big  chunk  of  the  black  stone, 
or  Kaaba,  and  with  these  they  fitted  out  the  mosque 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  69 

in  fine  shape.  And  what  do  you  think  the  Achinese 
chiefs  did  with  it  ?  Why,  they  simply  burnt  it  up,  — 
carpets,  black  stone,  and  all,  —  and  now  they  are  fight- 
ing again.  ..." 

The  next  morning  we  had  a  very  welcome  and  unex- 
pected break  in  the  monotony  of  our  sea  journey.  Our 
skipper,  without  any  rhyme  or  reason,  except  that  we 
were  out  of  soda  water,  and  perhaps  in  the  tropics 
there  is  no  better  reason  than  that,  put  into  Penang, 
the  largest  port  on  the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  the  outlet 
of  that  trade  which  has  assumed  such  large  proportions 
since  the  piratical  rajahs  were  placed  under  British 
protection  and  British  police.  We  all  stretched  our 
legs,  running  about  the  neat  and  orderly  town,  with  its 
Sikh  and  Afghan  "bobbies,"  until  tiffin  time;  you  see 
we  are  living  "according  to  Kipling."  Then  we  went 
on  board  again  with  a  very  pleasant  and  a  wholly  unex- 
pected lot  of  recruits.  On  the  dock  as  we  came  down 
to  embark  we  found  a  crowd  of  cricketers  in  flannels 
and  flaming  jerseys,  and  very  hot  under  the  collar  they 
were,  too,  because  the  P.  &  O.  steamer  that  was  to  carry 
them  on  to  Singapore  to  take  part  in  the  inter-port  cricket 
tournament  was  already  twenty-four  hours  overdue. 
There  is,  it  appears,  a  tremendous  rivalry  in  this  part 
of  the  world  between  the  cricketers  from  Perak,  Penang, 
Singapore,  and  Johore ;  and  the  Penang  people  felt 
sure  of  winning,  if  they  could  only  put  in  an  appear- 
ance on  the  field  at  Singapore  in  time.  The  moment 
he  learned  just  how  matters  stood,  our  colonel  invited 
them  all  to  take  pot  luck,  and  a  deck  passage  on  the 


70  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Sherman  with  us,  and  I  can  tell  you  we  were  glad  when 
they  came  on  board,  bag  and  baggage. 

Have  you  ever  sailed  on  a  troop  ship  for  thirty  days  ? 
Well,  if  you  haven't,  never  consent  to  it,  whatever  the 
inducements  may  be  in  the  way  of  prospective  promo- 
tion ;  choose  solitary  confinement  for  life  instead.  And 
yet  when  I  came  on  board,  and  we  ate  our  first  dinner, 
under  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  I  thought  we  had  the  most 
agreeable  and  congenial  mess  that  I  had  ever  joined; 
conversation  and  story  and  repartee  flowed  on  briskly, 
crossing  the  Atlantic  you  might  have  imagined  yourself 
at  a  Clover  Club  dinner.  In  the  Mediterranean  we  got 
down,  however,  to  an  everyday  basis,  and  when  we  ran 
into  the  Red  Sea,  the  mess  was  as  quiet  and  dull  as  a 
Quaker  meeting ;  the  spasmodic  efforts  that  were  made 
to  start  a  general  conversation,  or  to  tell  a  story,  were 
rebuked  with  such  surly,  snarling  remarks  as :  "  Seems 
to  me  I've  heard  that  before.  You  told  us  all  about  that 
when  we  were  off  the  Azores " ;  and  from  another 
quarter,  "You  gave  it  to  us  again  that  night  in  the 
Straits  of  Messina."  So  the  advent  of  the  cricket- 
team  was  a  windfall  of  the  first  magnitude,  and  we 
cackled  away  for  hours  like  a  girls'  school  out  for  their 
Saturday  afternoon  promenade,  and  then  each  member 
of  the  mess  picked  out  his  pal  from  among  the  new- 
comers, and  we  stretched  out  in  pairs  for  a  quiet  smoke 
and  a  long  talk  under  the  awning,  and  very  soon  you 
might  have  concluded  from  anything  except  our  flow  of 
conversation  that  we  had  known  each  other  for  twenty 
years,  and  been  spanked  with  the  same  rattan. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  71 

My  pal  turned  out,  curiously  enough,  not  to  be  a 
Britisher  at  all,  but  the  son  of  an  American  sea-captain 
who  lost  his  ship  in  one  of  the  periodical  upheavals  of 
Krakatoa,  and  had  preferred  to  cast  in  his  fortunes  with 
the  East,  rather  than  to  return  home  without  his  ship. 
His  son  is  a  coffee  planter  in  some  place  with  an  unpro- 
nounceable name,  behind  Penang,  and  a  very  well-in- 
formed and  intelligent  fellow  he  was  in  every  way,  as 
we  found  when  Jim  began  to  dig  out  of  him  the  mate- 
rial for  another  letter  to  his  Indiana  paper.  In  honor 
of  our  guests  the  Sherman  was  putting  her  best  foot 
foremost,  and  with  the  dark  and  mysterious  coast  of  the 
Malay  Peninsula  upon  our  port  bow  we  were  slipping 
along  at  the  rate  of  fourteen  knots  an  hour,  a  speed 
which,  I  can  assure  you,  though  not  our  best  gait,  in 
these  eastern  seas  commands  the  greatest  respect. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Jim,  scrutinizing  the  distant  shore 
with  the  air  of  a  statesman,  "  I  suppose  the  Britishers 
got  together  their  Malay  Empire  very  much  as  they  did 
India,  in  the  old  traditional  way.  I  suppose  they  were 
so  far-sighted  and  long-headed  that  they  picked  up  trifles 
that  the  other  fellows  didn't  think  worth  while,  and  then 
put  them  on  a  paying  basis."  The  young  planter  said 
nothing,  but  smoked  on  quietly,  while  Jim  with  a  cer- 
tain arrogance,  continued  to  display  his  knowledge  of 
the  methods  of  the  British  Empire  builders.  "  Then  I 
suppose  a  couple  of  prospectors  went  into  the  peninsula 
to  spy  out  the  land,  and  got  killed  in  a  row,  and.  the 
home  government  was  appealed  to,  and  they  sent  'out 
an  expedition  to  bury  the  murdered  men  and  bring  the 


72  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

criminals  to  justice ;  and  I  guess  it  took  a  whole  prov- 
ince to  bury  those  prospectors  in  ;  and  then  the  Imperial 
Government  decided  that  they  would  have  to  start  a 
stable  government  to  keep  the  graves  of  the  pioneers 
from  being  desecrated,  and  for  other  Imperial  purposes. 
So,  I  guess  it  was,  they  got  their  foothold,  and  then 
they  began  to  grow  and  expand  as  they  always  have 
done  since  the  days  of  Hengist  and  Horsa.  They  laid 
it  down  as  a  cardinal  principle  of  public  law,  I  suppose, 
that  your  Britisher  is  always  the  residuary  legatee  to 
the  land  adjoining  his;  then  they  established  spheres 
of  political  influence  and  buffer  states,  and  'hinter- 
lands,' that  ran  to  the  centre  of  the  earth ;  then  a  revo- 
lution broke  out  in  a  neighboring  state,  or  an  uninvited 
and  unwelcome  missionary  was  killed,  and  so,  much 
against  their  will,  and  acting  simply  from  a  sense  of 
duty  and  a  natural  desire  to  protect  their  own  prop- 
erty from  being  depreciated  by  their  unruly  neighbors, 
the  British  annexed  the  whole  shooting  match.  Now, 
wasn't  it  about  like  that  ? "  concluded  Jim,  triumphantly. 
"Yes,  it  was  about  like  that,"  answered  the  Ameri- 
can planter ;  "  what  you  say  is  like  the  truth,  in  the 
same  sense,  and  in  just  the  proportion  that  a  caricature, 
if  well  taken,  resembles  a  true  portrait  from  life,  though 
it  is  a  travesty  upon  it.  But  I  will  tell  you  a  little  of 
the  history  of  this  part  of  the  world.  I  suppose  you 
know  something  about  Singapore  ?  the  Britishers  occu- 
pied it  shortly  after  they  ceded  Java  back  to  the  Dutch, 
from  whom  they  had  taken  it  during  the  Napoleonic 
wars.  To  get  Java  back  the  Dutch  cleared  out  of  the 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  73 

Cape,  and  in  this  arrangement  you  will  find  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Transvaal  trouble.  It  hardly  seemed  worth 
while,  at  first,  but  the  British  hung  on  to  the  little  island 
at  the  end  of  the  Malay  Peninsula,  because  one  of  the 
men,  who  were  running  the  Bengal  Government,  wrote 
home  that  it  might  prove  useful  some  day.  That  day 
was  slow  in  coming.  The  English  were  so  busy  in 
other  quarters  of  the  world  that  they  let  Malaysia  lie 
fallow  for  a  number  of  years,  until  about  1870.  About 
this  time  Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  the  great  naturalist 
and  traveller,  could  say  with  justice,  and  did  say,  that 
'  the  Malay  Peninsula,  which  begins  just  opposite  Sing- 
apore across  the  Johore  Straits,  is  the  least  known  part 
of  the  globe  today.'  But  matters  now  took  a  quick 
turn;  business  in  Singapore  suddenly  became  very 
brisk,  and  the  expansion  of  trade  in  the  Strait  Settle- 
ments, and  the  Malay  states,  began.  But,  mind  you, 
the  change  was  only  noticeable  as  far  north  as  the  bunga 
mas  or  '  golden  flower '  line.  Beyond  that  the  Malay 
rajahs  tie  to  Siam  and  pay  the  flower  tribute  to  King 
Chulalangkorn,  and  of  course  there  all  is  still  filth  and 
wretchedness.  But  in  the  five  southern  states  where 
British  trade  interests  have  compelled  intervention,  you 
would  be  surprised  to  see  the  changes  that  have  taken 
place  and  what  improvements  British  supervision  has  ac- 
complished. For  these  people,  who  have  just  emerged 
from  thousands  of  years  of  filth  and  squalor,  and  never- 
ending  war,  have  now  a  growing  commerce  and  macad- 
am roads,  and  railways  to  many  places,  and  business 
colleges  and  schools  of  etiquette,  where  they  are 


74  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

taught  Caesar,  and  how  to  sit  up  straight  and  eat  soup 
just  like  other  boys. 

"  Now,  don't  misunderstand  me ;  the  Britishers  didn't 
do  it  for  fun,"  he  continued,  "  or  for  their  health ;  they  did 
it  for  money  and  to  increase  the  common  wealth  of  the 
world.  They  haven't  '  squeezed '  the  natives  a  bit,  and 
they  have  taught  them  to  respect  and  appreciate  the 
benefits  of  law  and  order;  and  see  the  result.  As  far 
as  the  states  that  are  under  British  protection  extend, 
you  can  do  business  and  travel  about  as  freely  and  as 
unmolested  as  you  can  in  London  or  New  York." 

"  I  don't  deny,"  said  Jim,  doggedly,  "  but  what  the 
results  of  British  empire-building  are  often  good,  or 
apparently  so,  especially  for  the  pockets  of  the  builders ; 
but  it  is  their  methods  that  I  denounce  :  and  I  hope  that 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  we  have  not  come 
to  accept  the  Jesuitical  maxim,  that  the  end  justifies 
the  means." 

"  The  English  have  nothing  to  be  ashamed,  and  much 
to  be  proud  of,  in  this  chapter  of  their  history,"  an- 
swered the  planter.  "When  they  went  in  they  assumed 
a  responsibility  in  the  face  of  the  whole,  civilized  world, 
and  they  can  indeed  point  with  legitimate  pride  to  what 
they  have  accomplished,  to  the  way  in  which  their  trust 
has  been  fulfilled.  And,"  turning  to  Jim,  "  as  you  seem 
interested,  I  will  tell  you  how  this  almost  peaceful 
revolution  occurred.  In  1870,  some  English  merchants 
in  Singapore  secured,  paying  a  fair  value  for  it,  in  view 
of  the  risks,  a  concession  to  work  the  mines  of  Pahang, 
and  the  rajah  promised  them  every  protection  and  se- 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  75 

curity.  Nevertheless,  the  miners  were  attacked  and 
repeatedly  plundered,  and  seeing  that  the  rajah  was 
weak  and  powerless,  or  the  principal  robber,  in  this 
instance  I  forget  which  it  was,  the  aid  of  the  Colonial 
Government  was  invoked  for  the  protection  of  British 
property.  These  robber  bands  were  put  down  in  a  few 
months,  and  throughout  the  whole  state  peace  and  tran- 
quillity was  established,  and,  mark  you,  it  has  never  been 
seriously  disturbed  since. 

"There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  Colonial  Office,  or  even  its  most  zealous  agents,  for 
one  moment  desired  to  annex  Pahang.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  certain  that  they  would  have  preferred  to 
see  the  mineral  and  agricultural  wealth  of  the  country 
developed  without  being  compelled  to  shoulder  the 
responsibility  of  government ;  but  here,  as  elsewhere, 
manifest  destiny  was  stronger  than  the  carefully  laid 
plans  of  men.  The  people  of  Selangor,  and  of  Ujong, 
the  Sultanates  upon  either  flank  of  Pahang  fought  so 
continually  with  one  another,  and  made  such  frequent 
inroads  into  British  territory,  that  soon  the  newly  estab- 
lished prosperity  of  the  protected  state  was  placed  in 
jeopardy,  and  it  was  found  necessary  to  proclaim  the 
British  peace  over  these  states  as  well.  Then  of  the  inde- 
pendent Malay  states,  which  had  never  sent  the  golden 
flower  to  Bangkok,  there  was  only  left  the  so-called 
confederacy  of  Negri  Sembilan,  or  the  'nine  countries.' 
These  people  had  been  fighting  with  one  another  and 
with  their  neighbors  like  Kilkenny  cats  for  hundreds 
of  years.  They  were  wretchedly  impoverished.  Per- 


76  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

haps,  as  regards  their  material  welfare,  they  had  sunk 
as  low  as  the  Digger  Indians  or  the  Australian  aborig- 
ines'; but,  and  in  this  they  differed  from  the  Diggers 
and  the  cats,  they  did  have  a  glimmer  of  intelligence, 
and  the  growing  prosperity  and  the  wealth  of  their 
neighbors  on  every  side  did  not  escape  their  attention. 
In  a  very  short  time  this  object  lesson  in  the  benefits 
of  British  rule  brought  forth  fruit,  and  the  nine  rajahs 
and  their  respective  peoples,  who  never  agreed  upon 
anything  else,  now  agreed,  without  a  dissenting  voice, 
to  go  to  Singapore,  and  to  ask  the  protection  of  the 
British  Government  against  their  enemies  and  their 
own  savage  customs." 

"That's  a  very  interesting  story  of  social  develop- 
ment and  progress,"  said  Jim,  who  is  as  stubborn  as  a 
shave-tail  mule.  "But  how  about  the  '  little  wars '  ?  and 
how  much  did  they  cost  ?  and  does  our  civilization 
mean  anything  to  the  Malays,  except  whiskey  ? " 

"  By  good  management,"  answered  the  Anglo-Ameri- 
can planter,  "  there  was  only  one  little  war,  and  with 
better  management  that  could  have  been  avoided.  It 
only  cost,  however,  four  lives,  rather  less  you  see  than 
the  daily  trolly  car  accidents  at  home,  by  which  our 
civilization  advances  along  iron  tracks.  When  the 
British  expansion  movement  in  Malaysia  began,  the 
British  Government  made  the  mistake  that  we  are  mak- 
ing, to  some  extent  at  least,  in  Cuba,  Puerto  Rico,  and 
the  Philippines ;  that  is,  they  took  the  first  square  pegs 
to  hand  and  tried  to  fit  them  into  round  holes,  and 
of  course  with  the  inevitable  result.  There  were 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  77 

Englishmen  to  be  found  who  knew  the  Malays  thor- 
oughly, but  instead  of  seeking  them  out,  the  Imperial 
Government,  which  then  ran  in  deeper'grooves  than  it 
does  to-day,  sent  as  resident  to  Perak  (a  most  worthy 
gentleman  he  was  too),  a  civil  servant  borrowed  from 
the  Bengal  Government,  who  proceeded  to  administer 
the  government  on  the  principle  that  the  truculent 
Malays  could  be  treated  in  the  same  way  as  the  mild 
Hindus.  In  a  very  few  days  this  resident  was  mur- 
dered in  cold  blood,  and  there  was  an  uprising,  and 
then  followed  the  little  Perak  war.  But  the  English 
had  learnt  their  lesson,  and  I  only  hope  we  will,  and 
at  as  small  a  cost.  The  greatest  benefit  of  the  war  was 
the  founding  of  another  covenanted  Civil  Service,  re- 
cruited from  among  men  who  have  a  practical  as  well 
as  literary  knowledge  of  Malay  traditions  and  customs, 
and  for  want  of  a  better  word  I  shall  say  their  juris- 
prudence also.  Clarke,  Swettenham,  and  Maxwell  were 
placed  at  the  head  of  this  service,  or  soon  by  their  suc- 
cess as  administrators  worked  their  way  up  to  the  head, 
and  to-day  these  men,  a  small  band  of  forty  at  the  out- 
side, administer  the  affairs  of  British  Malaysia,  which 
under  their  even-handed  rule,  is  as  prosperous  and  con- 
tented as  the  other  portions  of  the  empire." 

Our  countryman,  who,  as  Jim  afterward  claimed,  had 
become  submerged  in  the  British  Empire,  and  had  the 
British  peace  upon  his  brain,  now  warmed  up  with  his 
subject.  "  If  you  don't  believe  that  the  Malays  have 
learned  anything  but  whiskey-drinking  from  the  Eng- 
lish, when  you  get  to  Singapore,  take  a  week  off,  and 


78  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

go  and  see  for  yourself.  It  would  be  well  worth  your 
while  to  visit  the  Malay  states,  for  there  you  can  see 
the  same  problem  which  now  confronts  the  American 
government  in  the  Philippines,  and  which,  from  a  dis- 
tance, and  with  imperfect  knowledge,  seems  so  difficult ; 
and  you  would  see  that  it  has  been  solved,  and  with 
what  ease.  I  claim  it  is  an  achievement  to  be  proud 
of.  When  the  English  took  hold,  the  peninsula  was  oc- 
cupied exclusively  by  Malays  and  Chinese,  the  two  most 
backward  races,  and  the  hardest  to  move,  of  the  human 
family.  When  they  entered  into  possession  there  wasn't 
a  road  in  the  peninsula,  and  the  natives,  even,  didn't 
dare  travel  along  the  jungle  paths,  because,  if  they  did, 
they  were  certain  to  be  bushwhacked ;  they  travelled 
in  canoes,  by  water,  because  it  was  safer.  At  that 
time,  practically  every  man  ran  '  amook '  through  the 
country,  carrying  a  kriss  and  wearing  a  sarong,  and 
the  only  occupation  worthy  of  manhood  was  piracy  on 
the  seas,  in  praus,  and  on  land,  '  head  hunting '  — 
that  is,  collecting  the  heads  of  their  enemies  in  jungle 
forays. 

"See  the  difference  to-day!  The  country  is  sur- 
veyed and  apportioned  out,  and  good  roads  have  been 
pushed  through  the  jungles.  The  people,  who  were 
formerly  always  on  the  verge  of  starvation,  and  cow- 
ering in  the  jungle  recesses  to  escape  from  their 
enemies,  now  live  in  comfortable  houses,  suitable  to 
the  climate,  and  growing,  prosperous  villages  are  to 
be  seen  on  every  side ;  and  piracy  on  sea,  and  brigand- 
age on  land  are  almost  as  unknown  as  in  England.  If 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  79 

you  follow  my  advice,  and  visit  the  Malay  states  now, 
you  can  do  so  on  a  comfortable  steamer,  and  you  will 
land  at  a  dock  that  will  make  you  feel  ashamed  of 
those  rattle-trap  shanties,  they  call  piers,  along  the 
river  front  in  New  York.  You  will  be  carried  from 
the  dock  to  the  railway  station  in  a  cab,  or  perhaps 
a  native  gharry,  and  you  will  find  the  railway  station 
looking  like  a  bit  of  England,  in  fact,  too  much  so. 
And  then  you  will  be  whisked  up  to  the  Capital  in 
a  well-appointed  train  which,  you  will  be  surprised 
to  find  on  examination,  is  entirely  under  the  con- 
trol of  Malays  and  Chinamen.  Upon  the  line  of  your 
journey  to  the  Capital,  you  will  see  plantations  and 
mines  without  number,  in  profitable  operation  under 
the  most  approved  modern*  methods,  —  all  this,  remem- 
ber, where  twenty  years  ago  there  existed  the  purest 
anarchy,  each  man  for  himself,  and  the  weakest  to  the 
wall ;  you  will  see  asylums  for  the  insane,  and  for  the 
orphan,  hospitals  and  dispensaries,  and  savings-banks 
and  water-works,  fire  brigades  and  Pasteur  institutes, 
telegraph  and  post-offices,  and  —  " 

"  Say,  let's  take  a  drink.  I'm  afraid  I  don't  under- 
stand enough  about  the  subject  to  discuss  it  intelli- 
gently." This  from  Jim. 

"Oh,  but  you  ought  to,"  said  our  newly  found 
countryman,  though  he  did  not  decline  the  invitation. 
"  It  will  pay  you  to  visit  the  Malay  states,  and  you 
may  learn  things  over  there  that  will  save  many  a  little 
war  in  the  Philippines.  Not  that  these  same  little  wars 
are  such  unmixed  evils  as  you  seem  to  think.  In  the 


8o  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

East  they  are  almost  always  beneficial,  the  stepping- 
stones  of  civilization  and  the  price  of  progress,  I  take  it." 

Bright  and  early  the  following  morning  we  came  to 
where,  to-day,  as  when  Camoens  wrote  his  Lusiads, 
"  the  sea  road  shrinks  to  narrow  way,  to  Cingupur." 
Here  on  this  green  little  island,  under  the  equator,  the 
British,  in  two  generations,  have  built  a  city  and  an 
emporium  of  trade,  the  first  view  of  which,  with  its 
crowded  shipping,  its  great  docks,  the  handsome  resi- 
dences and  the  capacious  fire-proof  go-downs,  or  ware- 
houses, in  which  the  goods  of  the  Eastern  markets  are 
stored  for  shipment,  is  simply  overpowering.  "And 
you  know  when  I  came  out,  twenty-five  years  ago,"  said 
the  captain  of  the  cricket  team,  evidently  enjoying  my 
open-mouth  astonishment,  "we  had  an  awful  lot  of 
trouble  with  the  tigers  here,  in  fact,  I  assure  you,  they 
almost  drove  us  out  of  the  place;  but  we  have  suc- 
ceeded at  last  in  making  a  white  man's  town  of  it,  and 
of  the  indigenous  inhabitants  only  the  white  and  red 
ants  are  left,  but  in  the  seventies  I  can  tell  you  it  was  a 
different  matter.  The  tigers  fairly  terrorized  Singa- 
pore, and  the  annual  tribute  which  they  levied,  fortu- 
nately almost  exclusively  upon  the  coolies,  was  from 
four  to  five  hundred." 

There  is  no  suggestion  of  the  tiger's  lair  in  the  ap- 
pearance of  Singapore  to-day,  as  you  come  in  upon 
it  from  the  Straits ;  so  complete  and  compact  is  the 
city  one  might  imagine  it  had  been  standing  there  at 
least  five  hundred  years.  The  first  view  of  the  place 
was  such  an  "  eye-opener,"  and  I  felt  so  proud  of  our 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  81 

cousins,  and  was  on  the  moment  so  emphatically  deter- 
mined that  Manila  should  not  long  remain  a  one-horse 
town,  that  perhaps  it  was  just  as  well  that  we  should 
have  received  in  this  fit  of  enthusiasm  an  object  lesson 
in  the  cost  of  empire-building,  which  of  course  is  par- 
ticularly heavy  when  you  do  not  know  exactly  how  to 
go  about  it. 

As  we  steamed  slowly  into  the  basin  at  Tanjong- 
something,  a  French  mail  boat,  crowded  with  sick 
officers  and  invalided  men,  lay  at  anchor  almost  across 
our  bows.  She  was  coming  from  Cochin-China  or  Ton- 
quin.  I  call  her  passengers  men,  and  I  suppose  they 
were  alive,  or  else  the  Government  of  the  Republic 
would  not  be  giving  them  first-class  passages  home; 
but  they  seemed  more  like  corpses,  so  white  and  dry 
were  their  skins,  with  all  the  blood  pumped  out  of 
them,  with  their  cheeks  dried  up  and  withered  with 
what  is  called  out  here  the  Cochin-China  anemia.  On 
the  upper  deck  was  a  crowd  of  French  administrators, 
who  change  with  the  fall  of  every  ministry  at  home, 
and  so  of  course  never  have  a  chance  of  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  their  duties,  even  if  you  take  it  for 
granted  that  political  heelers  and  great  men's  jackals 
ever  could  learn  how  to  perform  them.  As  they  wan- 
dered about  the  decks,  smoking  cigarettes,  we  could  see 
that  they  were  all  decorated  and  were  nearly  all  men 
of  soft,  pudgy  build,  who  could  not  walk  a  mile  upon 
the  boulevards  at  home,  much  less  sustain  the  r61e 
of  pioneers  in  the  tropics.  They  wore  huge  Punjaub 
hats,  which  in  the  comic  papers,  at  least,  are  always 


8a  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

associated  with  African  exploration ;  and  they  were  all 
engaged  in  paying  court  to,  and  ogling,  the  tawdry 
yellow-haired  actresses  and  singers  who  were  return- 
ing from  their  season  at  Saigon,  where  such  a  troupe 
is  sent  every  year  by  the  French  Government  for 
imperial  and  other  civilizing  (?)  purposes.  Down 
below,  the  between-decks  were  crowded  with  young 
officers,  the  assistant  residents,  and.  the  other  poor  fel- 
lows of  the  foreign  legion  and  the  infantry  of  the  ma- 
rine, who  had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  recent  fighting 
with  the  "  black  flags "  on  the  Chinese  frontier,  and 
were  going  home  now,  broken  in  health  and  spirits. 
Long  after  we  had  passed  this  transport  I  could  not 
dismiss  the  spectacle  of  suffering,  which  her  decks 
presented,  from  my  mind.  I  could  not  but  wonder 
whether  we,  by  better  judgment,  shall  in  our  colonial 
enterprise  escape  the  pitfalls  for  the  unwary  into  which 
the  French  have  fallen.  I  could  not  escape  the  ques- 
tion of  whether  in  a  few  months  our  ships,  too,  will  be 
carrying  back  to  the  Golden  Gate  cargoes  of  human 
wrecks  such  as  these.  If  they  do,  I  am  sure  we  shall 
all  rue  the  day  that  George  Dewey  was  born. 

Shortly  after  landing,  I  left  Jim  playing  a  game  of 
pool  with  a  young  man  of  swarthy  complexion,  whom  the 
blonde-haired  barmaid  of  the  cafe"  just  out  from  Lon- 
don called  "  Sultan."  He  was  a  son  of  the  late  Abu 
Buker,  the  Sultan  of  Johore,  whom  the  English  bought 
out  and  pensioned  off  some  years  ago  out  of  considera- 
tion for  his  subjects.  Like  all  good  Americans,  when 
landing  upon  a  foreign  strand,  I  set  out  straightway  for 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  83 

the  consulate.  I  was  sorry  to  find  that  our  Consul- 
General  had  gone  home  to  the  United  States  on  what 
was  doubtless  a  well-earned  vacation,  and  still  more 
sorry  to  find  that  he  had  selected  a  full-fledged  Armen- 
ian to  perform  the  duties  of  his  office  during  his  ab- 
sence. There  was  nothing  interesting  in  the  papers, 
in  fact  they  were  of  the  same  dates  which  we  had  read 
and  re-read  at  Aden  and  Colombo.  As  I  did  not  care 
to  talk  about  Armenia  with  our  representative,  I  was 
very  glad  indeed  when  a  tall  lanky  man  with  iron- 
gray  hair  and  beard,  and  a  sharp,  black,  beady  eye, 
sang  out  across  the  table  littered  with  papers,  "I  am 
very  glad  indeed  to  see  the  flag  of  God's  country 
and  the  bluecoats  of  Uncle  Sam's  men  in  Singapore, 
though,"  he  added,  conscientiously,  "thirty-five  years 
ago  I  could  not  have  said  as  much."  My  new  acquaint- 
ance turned  out  to  be  a  Southerner  and  an  ex-Confeder- 
ate, one  of  those  derelicts  of  the  Confederate  navy 
which  the  sudden  collapse  of  the  Confederacy  cast 
adrift  upon  many  strange  and  distant  seas.  The  most 
pronounced  and  bitterly  unjust  Anglophobes  that  I 
have  known  have  been  invariably  officers  of  the  Con- 
federacy. The  moral  is,  I  suppose,  that  if  you  under- 
take to  help  a  man  out  of  a  hole,  you  must  do  the  whole 
thing,  and  not  let  him  slide  back  again,  for  if  you  do, 
he  will  hate  you  worse  than  if  you  had  never  paid  any 
attention  to  his  cry  for  assistance.  So  when  he  told  me 
that  he  had  lived  his  life  since  the  war  in  the  East, 
almost  exclusively  in  British  possessions,  and  that  it 
would  give  him  great  pleasure  to  show  me  around 


84  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Singapore,  which  he  asserted  he  knew  as  well  as  the 
palm  of  his  hand,  I  promptly  accepted  his  offer,  more, 
I  confess,  from  a  desire  to  listen  to  his  lurid  picture  of 
England  standing  before  the  civilized  world  "  dripping 
with  blood  and  daubed  with  dishonor  "  as  the  dema- 
gogues have  it,  than  in  anticipation  of  any  direct  bene- 
fit to  be  derived  from  his  guidance.  But  I  must  give 
the  old  boy  his  due ;  he  tried  to  be  honest  and  fair,  and 
he  succeeded  in  regard  to  everything  that  he  had  seen 
with  his  own  eye  and  personally  experienced.  He 
was,  however,  very  human,  and  while  he  told  of  the 
wonderful  improvements  and  benefits  to  the  world  at 
large,  which  British  civilization  had  achieved  in  Malay- 
sia, he  never  failed  to  offset  the  excellent  impression  in 
this  way  produced,  by  some  hair-raising  story  of  atroc- 
ities committed  in  the  name  of  British  rule  and  progress 
in  Burmah  or  in  India,  as  to  which,  on  cross-examina- 
tion, it  would  invariably  appear  that  he  had  no  more 
intimate  or  reliable  knowledge  than  is  to  be  obtained 
from  reading  sensational  newspapers. 

We  soon  climbed  into  rickshaws,  heavy,  cumbersome 
affairs  they  were,  and  not  at  all  the  light  and  airy  vehi- 
cle of  transportation  I  had  anticipated,  and  so  started 
out  upon  our  voyage  of  discovery  through  the  wonder- 
ful city,  which  the  enterprise  of  the  white  man  has 
caused  to  rise  out  of  the  jungle. 

"  We  should  give  even  the  devil  his  due,"  began  my 
guide,  assuming,  as  far  as  the  jolting  of  the  rickshaw 
permitted,  an  air  of  judicial  dignity.  "  In  the  Malay 
states  and  the  Straits  Settlements,  the  British  have  in- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  85 

deed  worked  wonders.  In  one  generation  they  have 
replaced  barbarism  with  civilization,  and  brought  order 
out  of  chaos.  They  have  made  trade  and  commerce 
flourish  where  formerly  there  was  only  '  head-hunting ' 
and  internecine  war  and  a  misery  that  beggars  all  de- 
scription. For  hundreds  of  years  the  merchant  adven- 
turers sailed  past  the  island  of  Singapore,  because  it  was 
apparently  only  a  jungle  infested  with  tigers,  and  cer- 
tainly gave  no  promise  of  either  spices  or  gold.  Then 
the  English  came  along,  took  hold,  and  made  a  free  port 
of  it,  the  first  in  modern  times,  I  believe ;  and  of  the  re- 
sult you  can  judge  for  yourself.  It  has  become  a  world 
city  and  one  of  the  greatest  markets  in  either  hemisphere. 
The  volume  of  trade  that  passes  through,  or  is  here 
transhipped,  is  simply  incalculable.  By  the  opening  of 
such  a  market  the  well-being  of  the  savage  tribes,  which 
dwell  within  a  radius  of  three  thousand  miles,  has  been 
increased  beyond  measure.  Thousands  upon  thousands 
of  these  savages  visit  the  port  year  after  year,  and  go 
back  to  their  jungle  homes  with  the  wonderful  object 
lesson,  which  it  presents,  deeply  impressed  upon  their 
minds.  From  it  they  learn  that  it  is  possible  for  men 
of  hostile  races  to  live  together  without  war,  and  that 
there  are  fields  of  human  activity  more  remunerative, 
in  the  long  run,  than  head-hunting  and  piracy.  One 
glimpse  of  the  prosperity  and  the  law  and  order  which 
reigns  in  Singapore  has  done  more,  I  claim,  to  improve 
the  condition  of  the  savages  of  Malaysia  than  all  the 
societies  for  the  protection  of  the  aboriginal  races  which 
good,  but  misguided,  men  have  founded  the  world  over. 


86  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Mind  you,  I'm  not  against  the  missionaries,  as  so  many 
traders  are ;  I  have  known  too  many  good  men  among 
them  for  that ;  but  I  do  believe  that  the  port  of  Singa- 
pore, with  the  gospel  of  work  which  it  preaches  day  and 
night,  year  in  and  year  out,  to  all  who  pass  through  its 
gates,  whether  on  ocean  steamers  or  Malay  praus,  has 
done  more  to  civilize  and  even  to  Christianize  the  na- 
tives of  this  part  of  the  world  than  all  the  Scriptures 
that  have  been  circulated  broadcast  among  them  in  their 
several  vernaculars.  And  the  reason  is  clear.  The 
story  of  Singapore  is  a  parable  within  the  grasp  of  all, 
which  all  can  understand,  even  when  the  teachings  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  are,  in  an  ethical  sense,  far  be- 
yond their  comprehension.  And  so  these  millions  of 
barbarians  of  many  colors  have  gradually  begun  to  wear 
something  besides  a  breech  cloth,  and  while  they  do  not 
know  the  articles  of  our  faith,  and  are  not  always  in- 
clined to  accept  the  Ten  Commandments  without  men- 
tal reservations  in  favor  of  some  of  their  tribal  customs, 
which,  let  me  say,  are  quite  as  old  as  the  tables  of  stone, 
yet  they  have  come  to  observe  the  common  law  of 
traders  who  meet  for  the  purposes  of  barter  in  the 
markets  of  the  East,  and  if  they  don't,  why  there  stands 
a  British  '  bobby '  always  on  hand,  a  British  '  bobby ' 
with  a  number  on  his  collar  and  a  short,  stout  trun- 
cheon, as  much  a  representative  of  British  law  and 
order  as  the  man  who  stands  in  front  of  the  Bank  or 
Royal  Exchange,  though  out  here  he  may  be  a  Sikh  or 
a  Sepoy,  and  by  him  this  sullen  savage  is  clapped  into 
jail,  from  which  he  only  emerges  after  having  received 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  87 

a  salutary  lesson,  and  an  education  in  the  common 
law  of  traders  which  cannot  fail  to  be  to  his  advant- 
age." 

"  Yes,  we  must  give  the  devils  their  dues,"  he  con- 
cluded sadly,  while  I  began  to  think  that  this  would  be 
impossible,  or  at  all  events  require  great  dexterity  to 
do  so,  without  burning  incense  before  the  image  of  the 
British  Lion,  and  of  course  that  would  never  do  for  an 
American.  I  was  not  quite  so  sorry  now  that  Jim  had 
decided  to  waste  his  time  while  in  Singapore,  playing 
pool  with  a  Sultan.  There  was  "copy"  in  that,  while 
I  felt  that  I  was  being  inducted  by  an  unwilling  but 
honest  guide  into  a  phase  of  the  British  rule  in  the 
East,  which  Jim  could  never  touch  upon  in  the  Sentinel, 
for  of  course  if  he  did  so,  all  the  "  tail-twisters "  in 
Indiana  would  stop  their  subscriptions  in  the  belief, 
no  doubt  honestly  held,  that  their  local  organ  had  been 
suborned  by  British  gold. 

As  we  jogged  along  through  the  gardens  and  park, 
on  our  way  to  what,  in  default  of  a  better  term,  I  shall 
call  the  tenement  quarter  of  the  city,  I  was  constantly 
surprised  at  the  spectacle  of  rich  and  prosperous 
Chinese,  and  very  intelligent  looking  they  were  too, 
for  the  most  part,  riding  by  in  their  private  equipages, 
and  some  on  horseback,  and  others,  if  you  please, 
driving  tandem,  on  their  way  in  from  their  luxurious 
homes  and  villas  to  the  business  and  shipping  quarters. 

"And  that,"  said  my  guide  in  answer  to  my  look 
of  surprise,  "  is  the  greatest  of  all  their  achievements. 
You  can  travel  the  Far  East  over  from  end  to  end 


88  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

a  thousand  times  and  find  nothing  more  wonderful 
than  that.  As  you  hear,  those  Chinamen  are  talking 
English  among  themselves,  and  with  a  high-church 
accent.  Most  of  them  have  had  English  educations, 
and  not  a  few  of  them  have  passed  through  the  uni- 
versities or  the  inns  of  court  very  creditably.  They 
are  not  simply  compradores  and  '  scroffs,'  such  as  have 
been  employed  by  foreign  merchants  in  the  East  from 
time  immemorial,  to  act  as  go-betweens  with  the  natives, 
but  they  are  bankers  and  barristers  and  large  ship- 
owners and  members  of  the  council  of  the  colony,  and 
they  all,  or  nearly  all,  stand  upon  their  own  footing 
and  have  independent  positions.  But,  mind  you,  it's 
only  a  few  years  ago  that  they  or  their  fathers  landed 
here  and  dug  wells  or  dragged  rickshaws  about,  just  as 
these  poor  coolies  are  doing  for  us  now.  I  had  always 
thought  that  while  a  leopard  might  possibly  change  his 
spots,  a  Chinaman  never  could  become  progressive. 
But  here,  and  in  Penang,  and  in  Java,  and  in  Borneo, 
and  in  Hong  Kong  you  will  see  that  this  is  not  so,  and 
you  will  learn  that  the  queen  has  no  subjects  more 
prosperous,  and  perhaps  few  more  patriotic,  than  these 
Chinese,  who  have  been  given  the  opportunity  to  better 
themselves  under  the  protection  of  the  British  law." 

"  You.know,"  he  continued  after  a  few  moments'  re- 
flection, "  whenever  I  meet  a  flight  of  Chinamen  of  this 
class,  I  am  convinced  that  there  is  one  hope  for  China 
which  those  who  cast  the  horoscope  of  that  empire 
never  seem  to  take  into  consideration.  These  over- 
sea Chinamen  were  many  of  them  refugees  from  the 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  89 

injustice  of  the  mandarins,  and  they  all  have  relatives 
at  home  who  still  groan  under  an  oppression  which  is 
worse  than  slavery  or  serfdom.  They  all  belong, 
whether  they  have  become  millionnaires  or  are  still 
coolies,  to  a  secret  society  which  is  called  the  '  Hoan 
Cheng  Hok  Ming,'  classic  characters  which  contain 
its  platform  and  mean  '  Upset  Chang,'  which  is  the 
name  of  the  present  Manchu  dynasty,  and  '  Restore 
Ming,'  which  was  the  last  Chinese  family  that  ruled 
over  the  empire.  Up  to  the  present,  the  over-sea 
Chinese,  especially  when  they  have  made  their  for- 
tunes, do  not  go  back  to  China  because  they  are  afraid 
of  the  rapacious  officials  who  await  their  coming ;  but 
the  news  of  their  prosperity  goes  home,  and  a  stream 
of  relations  and  fellow  clansmen  is  constantly  coming 
out  to  share  their  prosperity,  and  the  Chinese  officials 
have  tried  in  vain  to  stem  this  tide  of  immigration. 
Now,  in  my  judgment,  the  time  is  fast  coming  when 
for  the  Chinese,  at  least,  the  present  'flush  times' 
will  be  over,  for,  in  a  sense,  you  know,  the  Chinese 
are  like  the  Jews,  and  a  community  can  only  support 
a  certain  number  of  them.  When  the  Straits  and  Java 
and  Sumatra  and  Borneo,  all  lands  where  to-day  the 
Chinese  are  reaping  a  rich  harvest,  shall  be  crowded, 
those  who  have  come  too  late,  and  those  who  are  still 
attached  to  their  retrograde  fatherland,  will  go  back 
there  strong  enough  and  rich  enough  to  defend  them- 
selves, and  intelligent  enough  to  '  Upset  Chang'  and 
send  those  tatterdemalion  Manchu  bannermen  flying 
back  to  their  desert  home  again. 


90  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

"  Now,  mind  you,  these  over-sea  Chinamen  do  not 
merely  talk  like  the  English,  whom  they  imitate  so 
successfully,  even  to  their  eccentricities,  but  they  play 
like  them,  cricket,  tennis,  foot-ball,  what  you  will,  and 
they  play  well ;  and  —  what  will  strike  you  as  being  still 
more  remarkable,  when'  you  have  seen  the  Chinaman 
on  his  native  heath  —  after  the  game  they  take  a  bath  ; 
then  they  have  literary  and  debating  societies,  and  the 
Chinaman  who  is  a  member  of  the  Legislative  Council 
is  thought  to  have  a  better  knowledge  of  parliamentary 
law  than  any  man  east  of  Suez,  and  he  looks  like  Tom 
Reed,  too ;  but  in  that  he  is  not  singular ;  most  China- 
men do.  Just  at  present  they  don't  bother  much  about 
matters  at  home,  but  some  day  this  new  breed  of  Chinese 
will  turn  up  in  Peking,  and  that  is  the  salvation  of  China 
I  hope  for,  and  a  possibility  that  most  other  people 
seem  to  overlook." 

For  uncounted  and  delightful  hours  we  drove  on 
through  the  native  quarters ;  it  was  a  panorama  of  the 
peoples  of  Asia  and  the  islands  of  the  sea,  such  as  is 
to  be  seen  nowhere  else.  Here  men  and  women  have 
been  brought  together  from  every  part  of  the  Eastern 
world,  attracted  by  the  opportunity  which  Singapore 
affords  to  all  alike,  of  engaging  in  remunerative  work, 
and  here  they  are  held  by  the  assurance  that  the  fruits 
of  their  labor  and  their  savings  will  be  safe-guarded  by 
all  the  might  and  power  of  the  British  Empire.  To 
you  this  may  not  seem  a  great  bait,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  outside  of  the  British  possessions,  nowhere  else  do 
these  conditions  of  even-handed  justice  and  equality 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  91 

before  the  law  prevail,  and  the  Asiatics  are  beginning 
to  find  it  out. 

The  color  and  the  wonder  of  what  we  saw  that  after- 
noon I  cannot  reproduce,  but  I  will  give  you  the  bones, 
the  bare  facts  of  it.  The  present  population  of  this 
world  city,  the  reclaimed  tiger  jungle  of  yesterday,  con- 
sists of  about  6000  Europeans  and  Americans,  4000 
Eurasians,  20,000  British  Indians,  principally  from  the 
Coramandel  coast,  30,000  Malays  and  120,000  Chinese. 
To  these  add  from  1000  to  5000  each  of  the  Javanese, 
the  Siamese,  Pekans  and  Persians,  Sedangs  and  Battaks, 
Burmese,  Arabs,  Dyaks  and  Bugis,  Manila  men,  as  here 
the  representatives  of  the  various  Philippine  tribes  are 
called,  and  Seedy  boys  and  Klings,  and  Chetties,  a 
sprinkling  of  Papuans  from  New  Guinea,  and  a  hundred 
other  nationalities  or  tribes  which  I  never  heard  of 
before  and  whose  names  I  cannot  spell. 

To  each  one  of  these  peoples  has  been  allotted  a 
quarter  of  the  town,  and  here  members  of  other  races 
are  not  allowed  to  take  up  their  abode  for  fear  of  race 
wars  and  religious  rows.  Each  of  these  quarters  is 
called  a  "kompound,"  and  so  we  have  the  kompound 
Java,  kompound  China,  Siam,  Kling,  Malacca,  and  so 
on  through  the  ethnological  collection.  "  Kompound  " 
formerly  meant,  I  believe,  and  does  still,  in  a  restricted 
sense,  the  enclosure  around  a  residence.  And  so,  inside 
the  great  kompounds  of  each  race  there  are  hundreds 
of  other  smaller  kompounds,  some  surrounded  by  stone 
walls  and  others  with  bamboo  hedges,  in  which  the  subdi- 
visions of  each  race  dwell  in  huts  and  houses,  or  burrow 


92  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

in  the  ground,  each  according  to  its  architectural  tradi- 
tions and  time-honored  scheme  of  life.  Only  one  thing 
is  strictly  forbidden,  and  that  is  the  ancient  filth ;  modern 
sanitary  laws  must  be  and  are  enforced.  Somewhere 
within  the  confines  of  the  greater  or  race  kompounds 
there  stands  an  English  bungalow,  from  which  there 
flies  a  British  flag.  Here  lives  an  official  of  the  colonial 
service,  who  is  styled  the  "  Protector  of  the  Chinese," 
or  of  the  Javanese,  or  the  Klings  as  the  case  may  be. 
This  man  has  spent  his  whole  life  in  studying  the  lan- 
guage, the  history,  and  the  characteristics  of  the  people 
he  protects,  and  he  very  rarely  fails  either  to  gain  their 
confidence  or  to  deserve  it.  When  they  are  in  trouble, 
the  people  of  each  tribe  go  to  their  especial  protector, 
and  he  makes  representations  to  the  colonial  governor  in 
council.  The  complaints  generally  spring  from  the  ill- 
feeling  between  the  men  of  races  that  have  been  at  war 
for  thousands  of  years,  but  who  now  find  they  must 
live  at  peace  under  the  British  flag,  and  of  course  at 
times  this  is  irksome. 

For  instance,  if  the  Malays  should  raid  the  kom- 
pound  Java,  or  the  Chinese  quarter,  and  every  now  and 
then  in  the  height  of  some  religious  festival,  their  old 
head-hunting  instincts  asserting  themselves,  they  do, 
the  Chinese  complain  to  their  protector,  and  the  pro- 
tector of  the  Malays  is  asked  for  a  version  of  the  affair 
from  his  people.  Then  the  responsibility  is  placed  and 
punishment  measured  out,  and  the  protector  of  the 
people  found  guilty  is  charged  with  the  execution  of 
the  sentence.  To  me  it  was  well-nigh  incredible  to  see 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  93 

the  perfect  peace  that  reigns  after  but  a  few  years  of 
this  system,  which  is  simplicity  itself.  It  seems  to  me 
to  be  so  practical,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  so  successful, 
that  we  might  with  some  modifications  introduce  it  at 
home  in  some  of  our  great  cities.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
law  and  order  of  Singapore,  and  the  justice  for  all,  is 
not  to  be  found  in  the  cosmopolitan  slums  of  our  great 
cities,  such  as  New  York,  Chicago  and  San  Francisco. 
Our  coolies  pulled  us  along  for  hours  through  the 
little  narrow  lanes  which  run  between  the  kompounds. 
Now  and  again  we  would  stumble  upon  perfectly 
villainous  looking  crews  of  cutthroats,  glaring  at  each 
other  with  the  pent-up  hatred  of  a  hundred  years  in 
their  savage  eyes,  and  now  and  again  an  angry  word  was 
heard,  but  the  tall  Sikh  "  bobby  "  in  the  khaki  uniform 
would  come  striding  along,  and  then  everybody  went 
back  quietly  to  his  work  again.  The  occasional  glimpses 
we  caught  of  the  inner  kompounds  themselves  revealed 
curious  domestic  arrangements  and  customs,  far  too 
many  for  even  bare  mention  here ;  but  the  thing  that 
struck  me  most,  perhaps  because  it  came  in  the  nature 
of  a  surprise,  was  the  humanity  of  all  these  heathens, 
and  the  love  and  self-sacrificing  affection  which  they 
display  for  their  children,  and  strangely  enough  this 
beautiful  trait  was  most  strikingly  noticeable  among  the 
Chinese,  reputed  child-murderers  as  they  are.  A  coolie 
might  be  and  generally  was  clothed  in  filthy  rags,  his 
wife  a  slattern  and  ghastly  to  behold,  in  her  paint  and 
powder,  and  dripping  with  evil-smelling  unguents  of 
various  kinds,  but  their  children  —  that  is  when  they 


94  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

were  dressed  at  all,  which  is  not,  I  confess,  all  the  time 
—  were  neatly  and  cleanly  clothed,  and  very  often  ex- 
travagantly so.  The  Siamese  and  the  Javanese  women 
were  also,  I  noticed,  very  attentive  to  the  bodily  wel- 
fare of  their  young.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  see  them 
scrubbing  down  the  youngsters  in  a  perfect  state  of 
nature,  and  then  having  a  good  gossip  with  one  another 
as  they  dragged  their  brats  out  into  the  sun  to  dry, 
while  they  chatted  and  gossiped  and  ran  their  fingers 
through  the  hair  of  their  offspring  in  pursuit  of  invaders 
from  the  insect  world.  When  the  drying  process  was 
over,  and  I  can  tell  you  with  that  sun  at  a  standstill 
overhead  this  did  not  take  long,  the  Javanese  and  the 
Siamese  women  painted  their  brats  with  a  paint  about 
the  shade  of  gold  dust.  The  Chetties,  and  some  of  the 
other  British  Indians,  streak  their  young  with  chalk 
after  the  bath,  which  is  supposed  to  be  hygienic  as  well 
as  having  a  deep  religious  significance. 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  as  we  passed  Government 
House,  on  the  way  homeward,  Hawkins,  the  ex-Confed- 
erate, pointed  to  the  flag.  "  You  have  seen  what  Singa- 
pore is  to-day.  Well,  I  can  assure  you,  and  no  one  here 
will  contradict  me,  that  if  you  removed  that  bit  of 
bunting  from  the  flagpole,  the  whole  thing  would  go  to 
pieces  like  a  card  house  in  a  gale  of  wind.  You  don't 
know  what  obstinate  children  these  people  are  when  left 
to  their  own  devices,  but  every  one  who  lives  in  the  East 
does,  and  you  will,  too,  after  you  have  been  ten  days  in 
the  Philippines.  Now,  of  course,  the  English  are  not 
doing  this  out  of  pure  philanthropy,  nor  do  they  pre- 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  95 

tend  to;  but  they  are  imposing  law  and  order  upon 
the  savage  races,  and  they  are  daily  opening  up  new 
channels  of  commerce,  thereby  increasing  the  common 
wealth  of  the  world;  and  they  are  doing  it  not  only 
for  themselves,  but  for  the  good  of  all  civilized  people, 
as  well  as  for  the  benefit  of  the  savages  who  have 
the  good  fortune  to  fall  under  their  protection.  Of 
course  many  of  them  are  doing  it  individually  in  the 
hope  that  they  will  get,  as  they  certainly  are  getting, 
the  lion's  share  of  the  new  wealth  that  is  to-day  flow- 
ing into  the  western  world  from  the  East,  and  as  they 
deserve  it  I  hope  they  will  get  it,  though  I  am  glad,  too, 
that  at  last  our  people  are  awakening  to  the  trade 
opportunities  across  the  Pacific,  the  undeveloped  mar- 
ket of  600,000,000  people,  and  are  determined  to  have 
a  'piece  of  the  pork'  also.  No,  I  never  discuss  the 
Philippine  question;  it's  not  worth  while.  When  you 
have  been  out  here  a  year  I  guess  you  will  say,  as  I 
do,  that  America  has  come  into  Asia  through  no  fault 
and  by  no  merit  of  President  McKinley  or  '  Uncle 
George '  Dewey  either.  It  was  so  written  in  the  book 
of  destiny  and  your  transports  and  your  regiments,  while 
apparently  obeying  the  orders  of  the  Government  in 
Washington,  are  simply  pawns  held  in  the  grasp  of 
destiny  and  moved  by  the  fingers  of  fate." 

We  put  up  at  Raffles  Hotel,  which,  according  to  Jim, 
is  named  after  that  Sir  Stamford  Raffles,  who  having 
been  chucked  out  of  Java,  neck  and  crop,  came  along 
and  hoisted  his  flag  here.  Apropos  of  this  incident,  I 
will  give  you  an  extract  from  the  account  of  James 


96  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Heth,  second  lieutenant,  which,  wind  and  weather 
permitting,  will  ultimately  appear  in  the  Logansport 
Sentinel,  his  family  organ. 

"  Hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  navigators  and  con- 
quistadores  had  sailed  past  this  island  just  off  Johore, 
and  they  had,  one  and  all,  from  Albuquerque  to  Mendes 
Pinto,  turned  up  their  noses  at  the  trifling  islet.  Even 
Camoens  who,  as  it  is  quite  needless  to  remind  my 
readers,  wrote  some  verses  about  Cingapur,  as  he 
spelled  it,  passed  on,  as  had  so  many  of  his  predeces- 
sors, in  a  dreamy,  half  Portuguese,  half  poetic  way.  Then 
Raffles  appeared  on  the  scene,  a  brisk,  hustling  business 
man  out  of  a  job,  for,  as  my  readers  will  recall,  by  the 
treaty  of  Amiens,  the  British  gave  up  all  claim  to  Java, 
which  had  been  Raffles'  bailiwick.  Raffles  was  poking 
along  the  coast  in  a  great  tub  of  an  East  Indiaman, 
which  had  been  sent  to  fetch  him  away,  and,  unlike 
Sancho  Panza,  under  somewhat  similar  circumstances, 
the  Englishman  was  feeling  very  down  in  the  mouth  at 
having  no  savages  to  subjugate,  when  suddenly  this 
little  island  bobbed  up  out  of  the  turquoise  seas  in 
front  of  him.  '  There  may  be  something  in  that  potato 
patch,'  says  Raffles  to  himself,  '  and  at  all  events  if 
I  take  it,  I  shall  be  lord  of  an  island,  and  not  have 
to  go  back  to  England  without  a  handle  to  my  name 
and  hailing  from  nowhere ' ;  so  he  stepped  ashore  and 
took  possession  of  it  in  the  name  of  His  Gracious 
Majesty,  King  George  the  Fourth.  While  the  usual 
festivities  with  which  such  an  event  is  celebrated  were 
in  progress,  the  Sultan  of  Johore,  to  whom  undoubtedly 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  97 

the  island  belonged  in  fee  simple,  turned  up  very  nu- 
merously on  the  scene  with  a  fleet  of  piratical  praus 
and  piragues,  all  loaded  down  to  the  gunwales  with 
swash-bucklers  and  buccaneers,  and  poisoned  arrows 
and  blowpipes,  and  taking  in  the  situation  on  the 
moment,  the  Sultan  said  to  Raffles,  '  Nay,  nay,  Pauline,' 
or  words  to  that  effect,  in  his  outlandish  lingo.  But 
Raffles  was  not  to  be  put  off,  and  he  worked  the 
savages  with  the  same  old  trick  that  Romulus,  and 
^Eneas,  and  Hendryk  Hudson,  William  Penn,  and  a 
lot  of  other  builders  of  great  states  have  used  to  their 
advantage,  though  of  course  the  two  last,  being  inspired 
by  philanthropic  motives,  did  so  with  greater  propriety. 
To  cut  my  story  short,  Raffles  offered  to  pay  $5 
spot  cash  for  as  much  land  as  he  could  cover  with 
a  buffalo's  hide,  and  the  Sultan,  who  was  not  spoiling 
for  a  row,  but  a  quiet,  easy-going  man,  consented, 
and  of  course  Raffles  cut  the  hide  into  the  thinnest 
strings  possible  and  encircled  the  island  with  them. 
In  this  way  was  consummated  one  of  those  barefaced 
steals  out  of  which,  by  the  way,  a  chain  of  petty 
robbery  around  the  world,  the  Colonial  Empire  of  the 
British  is  constituted." 

"  Aren't  you  putting  that  a  little  too  strong,  Jim  ? " 
I  ventured  to  suggest.  "I  do  not  see  exactly  how 
Raffles  acted  very  differently  from  the  rest,  —  from 
Raleigh,  Penn,  Hudson,  Calvert,  or  even  those  im- 
maculate Pilgrim  Fathers." 

"  Well,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  frankly,  I  don't  either, 
but  that  is  what  the  folks  in  Logansport  and  Broad 


98  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Ripple  want  to  read,  and  I  am  not  going  to  disap- 
point them.  They  want  to  lean  back  and  feel  pious, 
better  than  other  folks,  and  that's  what  the  Sentinel 
means  to  give  them." 

After  this  revelation  of  Jim's  journalistic  honor,  we 
went  in  to  dinner.  At  our  table  was  soon  placed  the 
strangest  looking  couple  my  eyes  ever  fell  upon.  The 
man  talked  and  acted  more  like  a  kangaroo  than  any- 
thing else,  and  the  woman  looked  like  a  crazy  quilt, 
draped  about  a  sack  of  meal.  Her  dress  was  made  out 
of  at  least  a  dozen  pieces  of  bright,  variegated  silk, 
and  she  wore  it  as  though  she  had  never  had  a  dress 
on  before.  Several  times  she  swept,  not  only  her 
platter,  but  the  whole  table,  clean  with  her  flowing 
sleeves.  With  an  explanatory  wave  of  her  hand,  the 
lady  remarked  that  she  and  her  husband  had  been  liv- 
ing for  fifteen  years  in  the  interior  of  Borneo,  and  that 
this  was  the  first  table  they  had  sat  down  to  for  a 
long  time,  and  that  of  course  it  was  a  little  awkward  at 
first.  After  a  while  the  head  waiter,  who  wore  a  red 
bandanna  handkerchief  around  his  head,  and  another 
about  his  loins,  though  he  also  wore  trousers,  came 
along,  and  placed  a  French  priest  at  our  table.  He 
was  the  rummest-looking  customer  I  have  ever  seen. 
His  face  and  hands  were  scaly,  as  though  he  lived 
in  the  water  most  of  the  time.  He  could  not  manage 
his  food  at  all  with  his  knife  and  fork,  and  so,  not 
to  go  hungry,  every  now  and  then,  with  a  sly  look 
around,  he  would  carry  the  whole  plateful  to  his  mouth, 
and  gobble  it  down  in  the  old  way. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  99 

Jim,  who  smelt  "copy,"  was  drawing  the  couple  out 
about  Borneo,  and  they  certainly  did  talk  very  inter- 
estingly about  the  Dyaks,  until  at  last,  with  the  fruit, 
which  he  could  manage  more  easily,  the  priest  pricked 
up  his  ears,  and  took  a  hand  in  the  conversation,  set- 
ting the  talkative  couple  right  in  several  very  important 
particulars  in  regard  to  the  manners  and  customs  of 
the  Bajous,  a  race  of  sea  gypsies,  who  float  around  in 
Bornean  waters.  Conversation  went  on  swimmingly 
now,  Jim  listening  and  taking  mental  notes,  when  sud- 
denly, the  priest,  dropping  his  knife  and  fork  with  a 
clatter,  said :  — 

"Why,  you  must  be  Mr.  and  Mrs.  P ." 

"And  you  must  be  Father  Gregory." 

And  then  they  rushed  at  each  other,  and,  for  the  third 

time,  Mrs.  P swept  the  whole  table  clean  with  her 

flowing  sleeves. 

When  the  fracas  was  over,  and  we  got  more  things 

to  eat  and  drink,  it  appeared  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  P 

lived  in  the  heart  of  British  Borneo,  where  he  was 
governor,  and  judge,  and  high  priest,  and  that  Father 
Gregory  was  his  nearest  neighbor,  and  the  only  white 
man  living  within  five  hundred  miles ;  and  that  though 
they  had  never  met,  they  had  been  corresponding  for 
ten  years,  writing  their  letters  with  steel  styli,  upon 
dry  palm  leaves,  and  confiding  them  to  the  care  of 
the  sea  and  the  river  gypsies,  who  generally  delivered 
them  in  the  course  of  time.  And  so,  until  the  end 
of  dinner,  we  had  a  symposium  of  talk  about  the  Sea 
Dyaks,  and  the  Land  Dyaks,  and  how  to  fight  the 


ioo  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

white  ants  and  the  red  ants,  and  the  other  incidents 
of  life  in  Borneo.  When  the  coffee  came,  Jim,  who 
had  been  biding  his  time,  sailed  right  in. 

"I  want  you  people,"  he  said,  "who  seem  to  have 
Borneo  at  your  finger  tips,  to  tell  me  about  the  white 
rajah  of  Sarawak.  I  have  heard  of  him  ever  since  I 
began  to  collect  stamps,  and  I  can't  make  out  whether 
he  is  a  brigand  or  a  philanthropist ;  now  do  tell." 

Mr.  P flushed  up,  and  was  visibly  embarrassed  ; 

then  seeing  a  way  out  of  the  dilemma,  he  turned  quickly 
to  the  French  missionary,  and  said :  — 

"Perhaps  our  friends  from  America  could  obtain  a 
more  just  appreciation  of  the  rajah's  work  and  character 
from  one  who  is  neither  of  his  race  nor  of  his  religion." 

The  priest's  eyes  flashed  as  he  gulped  down  his 
coffee. 

"  Most  willingly  I  will  tell  you  what  I  know ;  but  to 
begin  with,  I  must  warn  you  that  his  name  is  the  brightest 
in  the  history  of  Borneo,  and  that  there  are  very  few 
Rajah  Brookes  in  the  East  or  anywhere  else.  Fifty 
years  ago  a  young  Englishman,  with  a  fair  amount  of 
money  and  plenty  of  time  lying  idle  on  his  hands,  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  spending  both  the  one  and  the  other 
in  cruising  along  the  Borneo  coast,  shooting  and  fishing, 
and  collecting  orchids  for  his  conservatory,  and  heads 
for  an  anthropological  museum.  While  doing  so  he  was 
hospitably  received  and  entertained  in  his  floating 
palace,  or  kraton,  by  the  last  Malay  rajah  of  Sarawak. 
The  host  on  this  occasion  is  still  remembered  in  Borneo 
as  a  very  worthy  old  gentleman,  though  strangely 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  101 

enough,  as  he  came  of  the  strain  of  fighting  Malays,  he 
was  not  a  warrior.  The  people  of  Sarawak  at  this  time 
were  living  in  daily  terror  of  their  head-hunting  neigh- 
bors, who  had  a  custom  which,  by  the  way,  though  it 
will  not  perhaps  so  strike  you  at  first,  corresponds  with 
one  of  our  own  usages  in  the  Western  world.  With  us 
in  France,  and  I  believe  also  in  England  and  America, 
a  young  man  of  a  certain  walk  in  life,  is  not  regarded 
with  approval  by  his  elders  if  he  should  marry  before 
he  has  secured  a  degree  of  some  kind  from  a  university. 
The  Dyaks  have  the  same  general  feeling,  though  they 
achieve  their  manhood  in  a  different  way.  Your  Dyak, 
before  he  can  make  any  proposition  of  this  nature  to 
the  father  of  marriageable  daughters,  must  return  from 
the  war  to  the  village,  which  is  his  home,  with  the  gory 
head  of  an  enemy  slung  over  his  shoulder.  But  to 
return  to  my  story.  At  the  time  when  Brooke  arrived, 
the  people  of  Sarawak,  owing  to  the  weakness  of  their 
chief,  had  been  for  some  time  past,  much  against  their 
will,  furnishing  the  heads  that  were  required  by 
their  Dyak  neighbors  when  contemplating  matrimony. 
While  Brooke  was  enjoying  the  new  world  and  study- 
ing the  men  and  manners  of  the  strange  civilization 
into  which  he  had  strayed  on  his  roving  cruise,  a  tribe 
of  savage  Dyaks  made  a  more  serious  raid  than  usual 
into  Sarawak.  They  came  in  larger  force,  and  they 
committed  more  cold-blooded  murders  than  ever  before, 
and  the  people  were  in  despair. 

"This  time,  encouraged  by  Brooke  and  his  white  com- 
panions, who  were  keen  for  the  lark  and  promised  as- 


102  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

sistance,  the  old  rajah  stiffened  his  back  and  declared 
a  holy  war  against  all  the  Dyaks  who  would  not  marry 
without  first  committing  murder,  so  this  declaration 
included  both  the  Land  Dyaks  and  the  Sea  Dyaks  as 
well  as  those  tribes  which  are  amphibious.  The  result 
was  that  the  Dyaks  received  a  severe  defeat,  which  was 
due,  of  course,  in  a  great  measure,  to  the  death-dealing 
rifles  of  the  strangers.  In  one  of  the  last  encounters, 
however,  and  before  the  rajah  had  an  opportunity  to 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  victory,  he  was  wounded  by  a 
poisoned  arrow  from  a  blowpipe.  The  old  Malay  chief 
was  childless.  The  heads  of  the  children  that  had 
grown  up  to  manhood  in  his  floating  palace  had  long 
since  served  to  decorate  the  marriage  feasts  of  the  sav- 
ages. Seeing  that  he  was  dying,  the  rajah  called  about 
him  his  Datus  and  faithful  supporters,  and  said  that  it 
was  his  wish  to  adopt  the  white  man  of  war  as  his  son, 
so  that  he  might,  by  due  process  of  Malay  law,  designate 
him  as  his  successor.  Hemmed  in  as  they  were  on 
every  side  by  warlike  savages,  this  remnant  of  a  noble 
race  was  only  too  glad  to  accept  the  leadership  of  the 
white  man ;  they  had  seen  Brooke's  prowess  in  war,  and 
in  his  presence  among  them  they  saw  their  only  salva- 
tion. So  there  was  no  objection,  and  the  young  Eng- 
lishman was  chosen  rajah  by  acclamation.  And  so  it 
came  about  that  he  took  up  his  abode  and  began  to  deal 
out  '  unequal  laws  unto  a  savage  race '  as  your  English 
poet  sings,  at  the  same  time  defending  his  own  vigor- 
ously, until,  little  by  little,  the  attacks  of  the  Dyaks 
became  less  frequent,  and  soon  they  ceased  altogether. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  103 

By  bitter  experience  they  had  learned  that  it  was  not 
healthy  to  go  head-hunting  within  the  boundaries  of 
Sarawak. 

"  Brooke,  long  since  deserted  by  his  companions,  who, 
thinking  he  was  carrying  the  joke  too  far,  had  gone 
back  to  India  and  home,  relieved  now  from  the  pres- 
sure from  without,  turned  his  attention  to  the  internal 
affairs  of  the  country  that  had  come  into  his  possession. 
He  approached  these  questions  with  the  same  vigor  and 
singleness  of  purpose  that  he  had  brought  to  the  knotty 
foreign  problems.  But  at  first  his  efforts  were  not 
rewarded  with  the  same  success.  He  found  his  Malay 
subjects  very  indifferent  to  money  matters.  In  fact,  as 
far  as  money  went,  like  all  the  other  inhabitants  of  the 
islands  of  the  ocean,  who  have  not  remained  like  the 
Sea  Dyaks  and  Bajous  in  a  state  of  utter  savagery,  they 
were  completely  in  the  hands  of  the  'baboos,'  or 
roving  Chinese  traders,  who  exercise  the  money  power 
over  all  these  seas  and  archipelagoes  and  so  own  the 
people  body  and  soul.  After  having  studied  the  situa- 
tion, Brooke  decided  to  deal  with  the  Chinese  financiers 
fairly  and  squarely,  but  at  the  same  time  he  proposed 
to  protect  the  childish  Malays  from  the  rapacity  of  the 
'  baboos/  of  whom  it  is  proverbial  that  if  a  man  but 
borrow  an  ounce  of  silver  or  a  pound  of  coffee,  they 
will  never  let  him  go  until  they  have  stripped  him  of  all 
he  possesses,  including  often  his  wives  and  his  chil- 
dren. The  way  Brooke  decided  to  stop  these  abuses 
was  manly  and  frank,  but  it  was  not  politic.  The 
Chinese  'baboos'  were  called  into  the  Kraton,  and 


104  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

informed  once  for  all  that  their  day  of  unlimited  power 
was  over.  The  rajah  announced  that  all  the  monopo- 
lies which  they  had  acquired,  both  upon  exports  and 
imports,  would  be  extinguished  as  they  fell  in,  and  that 
henceforward,  there  would  be  a  legal  rate  of  interest 
and  capital  punishment  for  any  one  who  practised  usury. 
Of  course  the  '  baboos '  protested  that  they  would  be 
ruined,  and  equally,  of  course,  they  made  all  manner  of 
propositions  to  the  new  rajah  to  divide  with  him  the 
money  they  could  '  squeeze '  from  his  simple-minded 
subjects.  Brooke's  only  reply  was  to  sternly  dismiss 
them  with  a  warning  to  sin  no  more.  The  '  baboos ' 
were  loath  to  lose  Sarawak,  which  had  been  for  a  long 
time  one  of  the  most  lucrative  of  the  places  subject  to 
their  plunder,  so  they  determined  to  resort  even  to 
violence  rather  than  change  their  practices. 

"A  few  nights  later,  when  most  of  the  able-bodied 
men  of  Sarawak  were  away  upon  the  islands  drying 
copra,  the  Chinese,  armed  to  the  teeth,  attacked  and 
overpowered  the  guards  of  the  Kraton.  The  palace 
was  taken  completely  by  surprise,  and  the  guards  were 
killed  at  their  posts.  But  their  resistance,  however 
short,  served  to  give  the  alarm,  and  when  the  murder- 
ous crew  attempted  to  penetrate  still  further  into  the 
Kraton,  Brooke  stood  there  ready  to  receive  them,  and 
shot  them  down,  one  after  another,  as  fast  as  they 
came  up.  Seeing  their  comrades  falling  upon  every 
side,  the  'baboos'  drew  back  to  take  counsel,  in  the 
meantime,  surrounding  the  palace  with  a  cordon  of 
men  on  shore,  and  a  line  of  canoes  along  the  river 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  105 

front.  Smarting  under  their  repulse,  they  were  not 
slow  in  reaching  a  second  resolution,  even  more  dia- 
bolical than  had  been  their  first.  Creeping  up  under 
the  cover  of  darkness  they  set  on  fire  the  bamboo  tinder 
box,  which  was  Brooke's  palace,  and  court  of  justice  in 
one.  As  the  flames  sprang  high  up  in  the  air,  they  could 
not  contain  their  shouts  of  triumph,  but  as  the  event 
proved,  they  little  knew  the  energy  and  determination 
of  the  man  they  had  to  deal  with.  Brooke  now  tossed 
aside  his  rifle,  a  weapon  of  uncertain  value  in  the  dark- 
ness, and  at  close  quarters,  and  armed  only  with  a  stout 
Malay  kriss,  he  made  a  dash  for  the  river.  One  after 
another,  he  struck  down  the  opposing  Chinese,  and 
then  dove  for  dear  life  down  the  banks,  and  into  the 
dark  waters.  He  swam  for  as  long  as  he  could  under 
water,  only  coming  to  the  surface  when  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  breathe,  and  before  morning  his  strong  arm, 
and  the  current  of  the  river,  carried  him  many  miles 
beyond  his  pursuers,  who  indeed  were  satisfied  that 
he  had  been  drowned  at  the  first  plunge.  Exhausted  and 
worn  out  by  his  exertion,  as  the  sun  rose,  Brooke  pulled 
himself  out  of  the  river,  and  sank  unconscious  among 
the  reeds  of  the  bank.  He  lay  there  several  days, 
delirious  with  fever,  before  at  last  he  was  discovered 
by  a  Malay  fisherman.  This  man  was  not  of  the 
Sarawak  tribe,  but  he  had  heard  of  the  rajah's  kind- 
ness to  his  people,  and  he  knew  that  he  was  suffering 
because  he  had  tried  to  curb  the  greed  of  the  Chinese. 
So  he  carried  the  rajah  to  his  hut,  where  he  made  a 
bed  of  bamboo  for  him,  and  made  it  comfortable  to  lie 


106  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

upon,  with  layers  of  plantain  leaves.  He  then  sent  a 
swift  messenger  in  a  prau,  out  to  the  copra  islands,  to 
tell  the  men  of  Sarawak  how  villanously  the  Chinese, 
during  their  absence,  had  used  their  lord.  Now,  had 
Brooke  been  what  I  believe  you  call  a  '  carpet-bagger,' 
had  he  been  simply  staying  among  these  people  for 
his  own  selfish  ends,  the  Malays  would  have  rejoiced 
at  his  overthrow  and  humiliation,  and  joined  in  with 
the  Chinese  in  their  celebration  of  his  death,  —  for 
the  '  baboos '  never  for  one  moment  imagined  that  the 
rajah  had  come  out  of  the  river  alive." 

"That  would  have  been  the  natural  and  logical 
course  for  them  to  pursue,"  said  Jim,  who  was  fol- 
lowing the  priest's  story  with  great  interest.  "  Now 
tell  us  what  they  did  do." 

"Well,  first  they  came  stealing  softly  to  the  little 
hut  in  the  jungle,  where  Brooke  lay  raving  in  his  de- 
lirium, and  there  they  did  him  reverence  as  though  he 
had  been  a  god,  and  indeed  toward  them  he  had 
acted  as  no  man  in  this  world  had  acted  before.  They 
swore  revenge  upon  their  krisses,  and,  leaving  a  guard 
to  watch  over  him,  paddled  swiftly,  under  the  cover 
of  night,  up  the  dark  river,  where  the  canoes  move  noise- 
lessly and  leave  no  trail.  Then  they  surrounded  the 
ruined  Kraton,  where  the  'baboos,'  drunk  with  sam- 
shoo  and  rice  wine,  were  making  merry  over  the  over- 
throw of  the  protector  of  the  Malays. 

"...  Some  days  later,  when  Brooke  was  able  to 
move  about,  they  brought  him  up  the  river  in  a  barge 
which  had  once  been  the  flagship  of  the  old  sea 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  107 

rovers  of  Brunei.  Two  or  three  days  had  sufficed 
for  the  men  of  Sarawak  to  build  upon  the  ruins  of  the 
old  Kraton  a  larger  and  a  more  commodious  residence 
for  their  chief ;  and  as  he  passed  from  the  landing 
stage  to  the  entrance,  Brooke  walked  through  an  avenue 
of  bamboo  poles,  upon  which  were  stuck  the  shrivelled 
heads  of  the  '  baboos,'  who  had  sought  to  lay  hands 
upon  the  sacred  person  of  the  White  Raj." 

"He  must  have  treated  them  fair  and  square,  right 
from  the  start,"  burst  out  Jim,  enthusiastically.  "Well, 
I  am  glad  he  escaped  the  high-binders." 

"  He  did,  indeed,  and  the  proof  that  it  was  so  is  to  be 
found  in  their  subsequent  treatment  of  him,"  contin- 
ued the  priest.  "  Neither  then,  as  you  will  gather  from 
their  punishment  of  the  '  baboos,'  or  at  the  present 
day,  have  the  Rajah  Brookes,  uncle  and  nephew,  been 
able  to  obtain  acceptance  of  that  Christian  doctrine 
which  inculcates  loving-kindness  to  those  who  despite- 
fully  use  us.  This  miracle  has  not  been  accomplished 
among  the  Malays  anywhere,  not  even  in  Sarawak,  but 
short  of  this,  the  Brookes  have  worked  wonders.  For 
fifty  years  they  have  ruled  over  the  little  satrapy, 
and  it  has  grown  and  prospered  mightily,  not  because 
the  Brookes  took  advantage  of  their  superior  strength, 
and  grabbed  adjoining  territory,  but  simply  because  the 
surrounding  tribesmen,  who  were  living  in  a  state  of 
anarchy,  saw  that  under  the  White  Raj's  rule  they 
were  safe  from  their  enemies  without,  and  would  be 
protected  in  all  their  rights,  religious  as  well  as  tribal. 
So  one  after  another  the  chiefs  and  sultans  came  in 


io8  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

and  made  their  submission,  and  in  this  way  was  formed 
that  confederacy  of  the  Malays,  which,  under  the  intel- 
ligent guidance  of  the  white  rajah,  has  become  such  a 
powerful  instrument  for  the  protection  and  the  pres- 
ervation of  a  race  which  had  seemed  upon  the  point 
of  vanishing  from  the  face  of  the  earth." 

"And  what  did  Rajah  Brooke  get  out  of  the  job?" 
inquired  Jim,  with  that  terrible  bluntness,  not  to  use  a 
more  severe  word,  of  which  you  know  something. 

The  P s  flushed  up  hotly,  while  the  priest  paused 

as  though  he  did  not  quite  understand  the  question ; 
then  he  began. 

"  I  will  tell  you  what  he  got  out  of  it.  Before  this 
job  turned  up,  Brooke  was  a  gentlemanly  vagrant,  and 
it  gave  him  an  object  in  life.  Before  he  came  to 
Borneo  he  was  spending  a  large  portion  of  his  income 
upon  the  improvement  of  the  race  horse  and  the  cours- 
ing greyhound.  It  was  his  chance  meeting  with  the 
Rajah  Muda  Hassim  and  what  came  of  it  that  sug- 
gested to  him  the  idea  of  leaving  the  brute  creation,  for 
a  time,  at  least,  to  their  own  devices,  and  to  assume 
the  nobler  and  more  difficult  mission  to  the  Malays.  He 
now  spent  his  income,  and  indeed  a  large  portion  of  his 
fortune,  in  works  of  improvement  and  in  schools,  and 
in  law  courts,  and  in  bringing  out  English  teachers  to 
help  turn  his  people  from  their  savage  ways." 

"  And  how  does  he  get  his  dollars  back  ? "  said  Jim, 
still  insisting  upon  the  business  aspects  of  the  job  in 
a  way  that  made  me  kick  at  him  savagely  under  the 
table. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  109 

"  He  doesn't  get  them  back,  and  he  doesn't  want  to. 
The  old  rajah  used  to  thank  God  and  the  Malays 
for  the  opportunity  that  had  been  given  him  for  a 
long  life  crowded  with  useful  work,  and  that  is  all  and 
enough  too  —  at  least,  so  he  thought.  He  gets  his  coal 
very  cheaply  from  the  coal  fields,  which,  by  the  way,  he 
discovered  and  taught  the  natives  the  value  of  ;  and 
thanks  to  the  high  esteem  in  which  the  neighboring 
chiefs  have  held  the  white  rajahs,  both  uncle  and 
nephew,  they  have  been  able  to  form  the  most  remarka- 
ble collection  of  krisses  and  other  Malay  weapons  in 
the  world,  which  they  receive  from  time  to  time  from 
their  friends  and  allies  as  presents.  With  these  ex- 
ceptions, and  a  few  other  rights  which  the  Malays  and 
the  Dyaks  alike  have  insisted  upon,  because  it  was 
the  old  custom,  the  present  Rajah  Brooke  has  not  re- 
ceived enough  out  of  his  Asiatic  satrapy  of  Sarawak 
to  pay  the  running  expenses  of  the  yacht  in  which  he 
prowls  around  the  coast  and  up  the  dark  mysterious 
rivers  of  his  broadening  land,  seeing  to  it  that  none  of 
his  foreign  assistants  and  residents  depart  from  that 
line  of  just  dealing  with  the  natives  which  was  laid 
down  in  the  beginning  by  his  uncle. 

"  No,"  repeated  the  priest,  with  emphasis,  and  with  a 
look  which  I  preferred  to  see  directed  toward  Jim  rather 
than  to  myself,  "  he  has  coined  no  dollars,  but  he  has 
done  a  noble  work ;  more  than  any  man  he  has  contrib- 
uted to  the  spread  of  civilization  throughout  Malaysia. 
Borneo  is  a  great  island,  practically  a  continent,  and 
of  course  the  light  of  humanity  which  radiates  from 


no  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Sarawak  does  not  advance  with  the  rapidity  of  a 
prairie  fire ;  and  if  it  were  artificially  fed  or  fanned 
there  would  be  wars  and  revolutions,  for  there  are  no 
people  more  tenacious  of  the  old  customs  and  attached 
to  the  things  that  have  been,  than  the  Malays.  But  if  it 
is  true  that  head-hunting  is  diminishing,  and  is  in  many 
places  quite  unknown,  and  that  the  sacrament  of  mar- 
riage is  not  defiled  by  the  shedding  of  blood  in  Borneo 
to-day,  the  credit  belongs  almost  exclusively  to  the 
White  Raj.  And  if  it  is  true  that  the  shipwrecked 
sailors  of  our  race  who  are  cast  up  by  the  sea,  and 
were  formerly  roasted  and  eaten,  or  at  all  events  put  to 
death  with  the  most  horrible  torture,  are  now  hospitably 
received  and  cared  for,  and  sent  to  some  port  from 
which  they  can  be  shipped  home,  it  is  again  all  due  to 
the  firm  but  just  rule  of  the  Brookes. 

"  Sixty  years  ago  the  islands  of  Borneo  and  New 
Guinea,  the  largest  islands  in  the  world,  were  about  on 
the  same  plane  of  civilization  or  savagery.  Perhaps 
the  Borneo  tribes  were  more  fierce ;  certainly  they  were 
more  far-reaching  in  their  depredations ;  indeed,  within 
the  memory  of  men  now  living,  the  Sultan  of  Brunei 
kept  his  piratical  praus  hovering  off  Singapore  and  in 
the  Strait  of  Johore,  on  the  lookout  for  sailing  vessels  to 
plunder  and  burn.  To-day  the  people  of  New  Guinea 
still  remain  savages  pure  and  simple,  while  the  people 
of  Borneo,  Dyaks  and  Malays  as  well,  are  beginning, 
according  to  the  measure  of  their  strength,  to  contribute 
to  the  well-being  of  the  world.  If  it  be  true,  as  it  is,  — 
I  can  vouch  for  that,  —  that  throughout  the  continent  of 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  in 

Borneo  a  white  man's  word  carries  more  weight  than  a 
yellow  man's  promise  or  his  bond ;  if  the  prestige  of 
our  race  has  risen  immeasurably,  as  it  has,  primarily, 
and  in  the  main,  the  credit  belongs  to  that  young  Eng- 
lishman who  came  to  Borneo  after  big  game  and  orchids, 
and  stayed  there  to  do  greater  things." 

The  priest  had  finished  his  story  and  walked  away 
slowly  down  the  veranda,  with  a  soft,  noiseless  tread, 
well  before  we  knew  it.  His  last  earnest  words  had 
cast  a  subtle  spell  upon  us.  There  were  tears  in 
Mr.  P 's  eyes  as  he  turned  and  said  :  — 

"The  old  rajah  was  carried  to  England  and  buried 
there.  Whenever  I  think  of  him,  of  where  he  is  taking 
his  rest,  under  the  old  burial  mound,  which  stands,  ac- 
cording to  the  custom  of  the  Saxons,  on  the  shore  of 
the  sea,  the  words  of  the  old  chronicle  that  tell  of  the 
burial  of  Beowulf  ring  in  my  ears.  '  There,  then,  they 
wrought  a  mound  on  the  steep  which  high  was  and 
broad,  for  the  sea-goers  to  see  from  afar.  Then  around 
the  mound  the  battle  brave  rode,  their  king  bewailing, 
and  many  things  say,  esteeming  his  bravery  and  his 
valiant  works.  His  hearth-enjoyers  said  that  he  was 
of  world  kings  the  greatest,  and  of  men  the  kindest.'  " 

Through  the  jasmine-covered  lattice  we  could  see  the 
great  street  beyond  the  garden,  and  the  flashing  lamps 
of  the  gharries,  as  they  hurried  to  and  fro.  Softened 
by  the  distance,  the  music  of  the  band  that  played  in 
front  of  Government  House,  and  under  the  shadow  of 
Sir  Stamford  Raffles,  celebrated  there  in  stone,  was 
borne  on  the  breeze  of  the  evening  toward  us.  We 


ii2  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

were  sailing  at  midnight,  and  as  we  wished  to  see  a 
little  of  Singapore  by  moonlight,  we  took  a  hearty  leave 
of  the  strange  pair  who  had  lived  so  many  years  in  the 
heart  of  Borneo,  and  become  uncivilized  only  as  regards 
their  clothing.  Jim  was  wrung  with  remorse  for  the 
silly,  flippant  remarks  with  which  he  had  interrupted 
the  priest's  story. 

"  I'm  afraid  I  made  a  fool  of  myself,"  he  blurted  out 
at  last. 

"  Not  the  slightest  doubt  of  it,  Jim." 

"  I  was  all  right  in  principle,"  he  protested,  "  only  I 
put  the  wrong  man  in  the  pillory." 

We  walked  on  in  silence  for  some  time,  and  I  could 
see  that  his  eyes  flashed  with  unusual  emotion.  Sud- 
denly he  caught  me  by  the  arm. 

"  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  am  sorry  I  cannot 
build  the  lofty  rhyme.  If  there  ever  was  a  hero,  a  real 
hero,  not  the  Sunday  Supplement  kind,  it  was  that  man 
Brooke.  His  life  was  epic.  His  story  is  the  epic  of 
the  white  man  in  the  East." 

We  passed  the  bandstand,  and  the  chairs  of  the 
"chop"  dollar  society1  that  has  the  entree  to  Govern- 
ment House,  and  stood  for  a  time  in  the  background, 
listening  to  the  music.  There,  partly  concealed  in  the 
shrubbery,  on  the  outside  fringe  of  official  society, 

1  In  the  East,  as  elsewhere,  there  are  "  bad  "  dollars  as  well  as  good. 
When  a  silver  dollar  has  been  weighed  and  found  up  to  all  requirements 
it  is  the  custom  of  the  bank  or  hong,  which  puts  it  into  circulation,  again 
to  place  its  "  chop  "  or  trade-mark  upon  it  as  a  guarantee.  So  in  the  East 
people  who  are  received  at  Government  House  and  the  consulates  are  said 
to  constitute  the  "  chop  "  dollar  society.  —  THE  EDITOR. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  113 

was  a  group  of  Tamil  girls  from  the  Coramandel 
coast,  dark,  straight,  and  lissome,  and  such  eyes ;  ye 
Gods !  the  seiloritas  of  Caney  were  milk  and  water, 
and  wholly  innocuous  by  comparison.  They  were  dressed 
with  barbaric  richness ;  they  were  savagely  beautiful, 
and  how  well  they  knew  it.  Now  and  again  we 
would  hear  them  whispering,  "  Tuan  America  —  Orang 
America,"  for  they  had  heard  of  the  Shermaris  arrival 
and  knew  our  blue  coats.  Jim  had  alighted  from  his 
Pegasus  now,  and  his  thoughts  and  actions  were  very 
much  of  this  earth. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  such  pretty  purple  toes,"  he 
sighed,  as  he  pointed  to  the  feet  of  one  of  the  dark 
beauties,  "and  they  are  covered  with  rings  and  jewels 
too."  Then  he  began  to  hum  :  — 

"  Rings  on  her  fingers 
And  rings  on  her  toes, 
And  she  shall  have  lovers 
Wherever  she  goes." 

But  she  wasn't  to  have  my  second  lieutenant,  so  I 
caught  him  by  the  neck  and  swung  him  into  a  gharry, 
and  we  galloped  on  through  the  moonlit  night  until  we 
came  to  the  Tanjong,  something  or  other,  off  which 
the  Sherman  lay  at  anchor.  And  I  think  it  was  owing 
to  this  energetic  measure  that  we  sailed  next  morning 
before  daybreak  with  our  full  complement  of  men,  in- 
cluding James  Heth,  Company  D,  Twenty-first  U.  S. 
Infantry. 


ii4  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

U.  S.  TRANSPORT  Sherman, 
HONG  KONG,  April  25,  1899. 
MY  DEAR  GILL  :  — 

On  the  morning  of  the  seventh  day  out  from  Singa- 
pore, the  sea,  which  had  been  so  empty  and  monoto- 
nous to  look  upon,  became  suddenly  crowded  with 
islands,  many  of  them  rose  out  of  the  water  to  a  great 
height,  and  all  of  them  were  sterile  and  apparently 
uninhabited ;  now  and  again  we  passed  a  wretched- 
looking  fishing  craft  or  a  suspicious-looking  junk  that 
gave  us  a  wide  berth.  "  These  are  the  Ladrone  Is- 
lands," said  our  skipper.  "  The  Portuguey  called  them 
the  Ladrones  because  the  inhabitants  were  such  thieves, 
and  the  Portuguey  ought  to  know  all  there  is  about  thiev- 
ing. Fifty  years  ago  these  islands  were  all  just  alike, 
barren  and  uninhabited  except  for  the  pirates,  and  the 
sea-gulls  lighting  on  them  every  now  and  then.  Then 
the  Britishers  ran  their  flag  up  over  one  of  the  group,  —  I 
believe  they  paid  the  Chinese  for  the  privilege,  but  I  am 
not  sure  of  that.  Well,  that  rock,  which  was  as  worth- 
less as  all  the  rest  of  them  when  they  raised  their  flag 
over  it,  is  to-day  the  third  port  of  the  world,  and  more 
than  15,000,000  tons  of  shipping  enter  it  every  year." 

An  hour  later,  in  the  clear  bright  sunlight  of  the 
morning,  the  rock  where  this  miracle  was  wrought  rose 
before  us.  I  confess  that  from  a  distance  Hong  Kong 
looked  very  much  like  the  rest  of  the  Ladrones,  gray, 
sterile,  and  forbidding,  and  many  of  us  were  inclined  to 
receive  the  captain's  statement  that  we  were  fast  ap- 
proaching the  greatest  emporium  of  the  East,  with  a 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  115 

certain  amount  of  scepticism.  However,  every  beat  of 
the  screw  brought  us  nearer,  and  one  by  one  the  won- 
ders of  the  place  came  into  clearer  view.  Soon  we  saw 
that  this  little  island,  unlike  the  other  worthless  shoals 
or  shafts  of  rock  that  rose  out  of  the  sea,  was  hedged 
about  with  granite  docks  and  walls.  The  island  itself,  as 
it  rose  to  a  peak,  that  was  lost  to  view  in  the  clouds,  was 
honeycombed  with  roads  and  streets,  and  dotted  with 
palatial  hongs  and  dwellings.  Looking  like  ants  in 
the  distance,  we  caught  sight  of  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  workmen  swarming  up  the  mountain  side  and 
down  upon  the  docks  to  their  daily  tasks. 

"  If  you  landed  unarmed  and  with  five  cents  in  your 
pocket,  upon  one  of  them  other  islands,"  said  the  skipper, 
with  a  contemptuous  wave  of  the  hand  to  the  Ladrones, 
"  your  life  would  not  be  worth  five  minutes'  purchase ; 
but  in  Hong  Kong  there  are  300,000  men,  and  some 
pretty  tough  citizens  among  them,  who  have  flocked 
here  from  all  over  Asia,  and  yet  there  never  is  any 
trouble." 

We  should  have  been,  in  a  measure,  prepared  for  the 
miracle  that  now  grew  plain  before  us,  by  what  we  had 
seen  in  Colombo  and  Singapore,  and  yet,  after  all,  the  first 
view  of  the  imperial  city  of  the  East  came  with  the  over- 
powering force  of  a  surprise.  I  lifted  my  hat,  I  can 
tell  you,  to  the  Britishers,  as  I  saw  what  one  generation 
of  the  breed  had  done  with  that  rock  by  practising  the 
gospel  of  work.  Why,  the  water  front  of  New  York 
looks  like  a  fishing  village  in  comparison  with  this  city 
of  the  East,  which,  at  a  glance,  you  see  has  come  to 


n6  THE   GOLDEN    HORSESHOE 

stay.  Of  course  I  cannot  give  you  the  details  of  the 
picture ;  an  artist,  with  pen  and  pencil,  is  required  for 
that,  and  a  great  one,  but  some  day  that  man  will  come, 
and  we  will  all  listen  to  him.  It  was  a  great  story  that 
Camoens  sang,  that  of  the  adventurers,  who,  with  their 
stout  hearts,  penetrated,  on  fragile  barques,  the  farthest 
seas;  but  the  spread  of  civilization  and  the  conquests 
of  commerce  in  the  East,  during  the  century  that  is 
about  to  close,  is  an  epic  that  will  stand  comparison 
with  any  that  has  been  written. 

When  we  seemed  to  be  almost  within  hailing  distance, 
for  a  moment  we  lost  sight  of  Hong  Kong  altogether. 
We  were  passing  through  a  narrow  channel  with  walls 
that  rose  on  either  side  sheer  from  the  sea  to  the 
height  of  many  hundred  feet.  I  will  take  advantage 
of  this  breathing  spell  to  tell  you  why  we  have  deviated 
a  little  from  the  usual  route  to  Manila,  and  how  it  hap- 
pens that  we  are  approaching  Hong  Kong  at  all.  For 
some  weeks  past  there  has  been  something  the  matter 
with  the  Sherman,  and  the  skipper,  to  silence  all  further 
inquiry,  after  leaving  Colombo  announced  that  she  had  a 
"  hot  box."  Certain  it  is  that  the  speed  with  which  we 
crossed  the  Atlantic  and  the  Mediterranean,  traversed 
the  Red  Sea  and  the  Indian  Ocean  has  long  since 
been  lost,  and  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal  we  did  no  better 
than  a  "  freighter."  It  had  been  our  plan  after  leav- 
ing Singapore  to  steam  through  the  Sulu  Seas  and, 
according  to  the  Penang  papers,  the  Sultan  was  wait- 
ing for  us  off  the  Island  of  Jolo  with  his  piratical  praus, 
and  buccaneering  datus ;  but  owing  to  the  mysterious 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  117 

trouble  with  our  engines,  this  meeting  had  to  be  post- 
poned, and  we  made  for  Hong  Kong,  which  is  famous, 
among  other  things  throughout  the  East,  for  its  ship- 
yards. So  it  happened  that  we  crept  along  the  Cochin- 
China  coast,  and  saw  the  cape  off  which  tradition  has 
it  Camoens  was  shipwrecked,  and  swam  ashore  with 
the  manuscript  of  the  Lusiads  under  his  arm.  Then 
for  six  days  more  we  "coasted"  along  Asia,  as  the 
skipper  called  it,  though  not  a  speck  of  land  did  I 
see  until  the  Ladrones  came  in  sight.  .  .  . 

As  we  shot  out  from  behind  the  granite  barrier  of 
the  intervening  island  we  were  so  near  to  Hong  Kong 
that  we  could  hear  the  creaking  of  the  derricks  on  the 
docks,  and  the  roar  of  the  blasting  charges  in  the 
quarries.  Men  were  rushing  about  all  over  the  place, 
as  if  time  were  really  an  object.  We  rubbed  our  eyes 
hard  and  wondered  how  it  had  happened,  that  in  a 
moment  we  had  passed  from  out  the  lazy,  slippered  East, 
and  were  back  again  in  the  wide-awake  world  of  men 
who  earn  their  daily  bread  in  the  sweat  of  their  brows. 
Dozens  of  great  ocean  steamers  went  past  us,  whipping 
in  and  out  of  the  channel  like  the  big  fish  they  are, 
and  suddenly,  above  the  tooting  of  the  whistles,  and 
the  general  uproar,  we  heard  an  ear-splitting  English 
cheer.  We  were  passing  a  great  battleship  that  is 
standing  guard  over  this  vast  workshop  and  market  of 
the  East,  the  "jackies"  had  manned  the  yards,  the 
ship  was  dressed,  and  then  after  the  spontaneous  cheers 
which  were  not  down  in  the  regulations  and  cannot  be 
given  at  command,  the  formal  salute  to  our  flag  was 


n8  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

fired.  We  presented  arms,  and  the  colonel  stood  on 
the  bridge  and  saluted.  I  tell  you  that  English  cheer 
sounded  so  familiar  that  we  all  felt  we  were  getting 
home  after  a  long  voyage  in  unknown  seas,  and  among 
strange  people.  Every  one  was  pleased  and  delighted 
and  proud,  with  the  exception  of  Jim,  who,  as  you  will 
remember,  dies  hard. 

"There's  the  robber's  rock,"  he  shouted,  "the  last 
station,  thank  God!  in  the  chain  of  toll  gates  they 
have  put  up  around  the  world  all  the  way  from  Gib- 
raltar; this  is  the  robber's  nest,  and  there  go  his  ships 
carrying  off  the  spoils  of  the  East ;  this  is  the  empire 
city  of  Victoria,  Her  Gracious  Majesty,  Victoria  Regina, 
to  whom  '  Sheba  pays  tribute  and  Osiris  brings  gifts,' 
and  if  they  don't,  why,  Victoria  Regina  will  give  the 
niggers  a  thundering  licking." 

Jim  was  in  his  last  ditch,  and  his  last  cartridge  con- 
tained, I  thought,  a  dum-dum  bullet,  which  is  against 
the  rules  of  war,  but  was  in  this  instance  certainly 
amusing,  and  so  he  went  on. 

"And  do  you  know  what  that  cheer  from  the  Eng- 
lish boat  means,  and  how  they  treated  that  flag  they 
now  salute,  until  after  Appomattox?  Well,  that  cheer 
means,  put  into  the  language  of  everyday  folk :  '  Cous- 
ins, we  have  bitten  off  a  little  more  than  we  can  chew, 
and  we  want  you  to  come  and  help  us  out.  It's  a 
good  business,  and  we  would  take  you  in  as  junior 
partner,  and  we  will  give  you  absolutely  everything 
we  don't  want  ourselves.  We  hope  you  won't  mind 
that  we  have  been  around  the  world  prospecting,  while 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  119 

you  were  in  the  nursery,  and  have  staked  out  all  the 
good  claims  and  reserved  all  the  corner  lots,  but  what's 
left  you  are  welcome  to,  and  kindly,  if  you  will  only  pitch 
in  and  help  us  keep  what  we  have  got.' " 

Everybody  laughed,  though  perhaps  none  of  us  were 
listening  very  intently,  we  were  all  too  deeply  engrossed 
in  watching  the  wonders  of  the  city  that  the  nearer  view 
disclosed.  First  came  the  great  granite  praya  or  sea 
wall  which  has  recently  been  built  at  an  immense  cost, 
a  stupendous  undertaking,  by  which  the  sea  was  pushed 
back,  the  earth  rilled  in,  and  so  a  little  space  gained 
between  the  rocks  and  the  shore.  Then  came  a  row  of 
docks  and  warehouses,  and  the  fireproof  godowns  in 
which  the  cargoes  are  stored  awaiting  distribution  and 
transhipment.  Upon  the  next  tier  of  the  city  are  the 
hongs  and  business  houses,  the  hotels,  the  barracks,  the 
public  buildings,  and  the  clubs.  Far  up  above,  hanging 
to  the  heights  in  little  rows  and  terraces,  which  have 
been  blasted  out  of  the  solid  rock,  are  ensconced  the 
villas,  many  of  them  literally  palaces,  of  the  rich  mer- 
chants ;  they  stretch  upward,  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach, 
until  lost  to  view  in  the  damp  vapor  cloud  which  always 
envelopes  the  crest  of  the  peak. 

We  were  not  given  a  quiet  moment  in  which  to 
contemplate,  at  our  ease,  the  marvellous  scene.  The 
blessed  thing  wouldn't  stand  still,  and  the  steamers  kept 
coming  in  and  out  with  the  regularity  of  trains  on  stone- 
ballasted  tracks.  They  were  bound  to  ports  at  the  other 
end  of  the  world,  but  the  passengers  lolled  around  on 
deck  as  though  they  were  going  to  Coney  Island  for 


120  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

the  afternoon.  Hundreds  of  other  great  steamers  were 
loading  and  discharging,  and  my  head  ached  with  the 
roar  and  the  rattle  of  the  steam  cranes,  and  the  sharp 
whistles  of  the  steam  launches,  in  which  sat  the  ship- 
ping clerks  carrying  out  to  the  departing  steamers  at 
top  speed  their  clearance  papers  and  last  instruc- 
tions. .  .  . 

Suddenly,  where  they  came  from  we  never  knew,  it 
looked  as  though  they  had  dropped  from  the  clouds,  a 
fleet  of  little  boats  manned  by  Chinese  men,  and  women 
too,  swooped  down  upon  us  and  began  to  take  us  ashore 
bag  and  baggage,  without  so  much  as  saying  by  your 
leave.  Jim  and  I  had  secured  permission  to  land  at 
once,  and  soon  we  found  ourselves  being  rowed  across 
the  harbor  by  a  Chinese  boy,  who  was  as  strong  as  an 
ox,  though  there  was  not  a  muscle  visible  on  his  body. 
The  heat  was  intense  and  the  tide  flowed  strongly 
against  us.  The  sweat  ran  down  our  oarsman's  bare 
back,  but  under  his  great  straw  hat,  which  looked  like 
the  roof  of  a  house,  he  whistled  away,  I  suppose  to 
keep  cool. 

When  we  climbed  out  on  the  landing  stage  we  gave 
our  boatman  a  shilling  apiece.  Seeing,  I  suppose,  that 
we  were  "  easy,"  he  asked  for  another  shilling,  and  we 
were  about  to  hand  it  over,  it  certainly  did  not  seem 
too  much,  when  suddenly  from  somewhere,  right  out 
of  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  there  sprang  up  before 
our  astonished  eyes  a  Sikh  policeman,  armed  with  a 
stout  truncheon.  Taking  in  the  situation  at  once,  he 
gave  the  China  boy  several  raps  with  his  club,  the  boy 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  121 

squealed  like  a  stuck  pig,  and  we  got  all  our  money 
back,  and  I  am  afraid  in  the  hurry  and  the  excitement 
a  little  more  besides.  Profuse  apologies,  in  a  strange 
guttural  language,  were  offered  us  by  the  Sikh,  and 
assurances  were  given  and  accepted,  that  it  would  never 
occur  again.  We  were  assured  that  the  license  of  the 
boy  to  ply  for  hire  in  the  harbor  of  Victoria  would 
be  cancelled,  or  at  all  events  suspended  for  at  least  six 
months.  As  we  wandered  on,  we  could  not  help  com- 
paring the  shameful  way  in  which  our  "  dough-boys  " 
were  robbed  in  the  harbor  of  New  York,  with  the  way 
in  which  we  were  being  watched  over  and  protected  in 
Hong  Kong.  Walking  on  for  a  block  or  two  past  the 
warehouses,  we  came  to  a  street  that  was  rather  more 
imposing  and  certainly  broader  than  those  we  had 
crossed  coming  from  the  water  front.  Having  travelled 
now  all  the  way  from  Gibraltar  upon  the  Queen's  high- 
way,  we  were  rather  bored  to  find  that  this  street  is 
known  as  the  Queen's  Road,  too.  /Then  suddenly, 
without  a  moment's  warning,  we  stumbled  into  the 
throbbing,  pulsating  heart  of  this  Eastern  mart,  the  stock 
exchange,  the  market,  and  the  clearing  house  all  in 
one,  that  extends  along  this  street  from  the  club  to  the 
clock  tower.  Such  a  scene  it  was  that  met  our  eyes, 
and  such  a  babble  of  tongues  that  fell  upon  our  ears ! 
Messengers  were  going  and  coming  with  cablegrams 
and  "chits"  and  what  they  call  out  here  "expresses," 
little  slips  of  paper,  damp  from  the  printing  press,  with 
which  the  arrival  and  departure  of  steamers  is  an- 
nounced. No  one  could  doubt  for  a  moment  that 


122  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

every  channel  of  commerce  and  every  line  of  trade 
converged  here,  and  that  nothing  can  happen  in  the 
wide  world  but  what  the  electric  spark  would  carry 
the  news  of  it  in  a  few  seconds  to  this  shabby  little 
exchange  at  the  end  of  the  earth.  Here  on  the  side- 
walk, or,  to  speak  more  precisely,  in  the  gutter,  which 
they  seem  to  find  cooler,  Englishmen  and  Germans, 
British  Indians  and  Armenians,  Chinese  and  Parsees, 
and  Jews  from  Bagdad  and  everywhere  else,  were  sell- 
ing and  exchanging  the  products  of  the  East  and  West. 
The  place  hummed,  like  the  New  York  stock  exchange 
or  the  Chicago  grain  room,  and  the  whirl  and  the 
rush  of  it  all  fairly  made  us  giddy,  weak  and  limp  as 
we  were  from  our  long  voyage,  and  the  confinement 
of  life  on  a  transport.  Some  of  the  traders  simply 
wore  singlets  and  duck  trousers,  others,  the  more  con- 
servative, appeared  in  white  tunics  of  drill  or  Chefoo 
silk,  buttoned  up  to  the  throat  with  shining  silver  ticals, 
the  Siamese  dollars;  some  new  arrivals  and  visiting 
merchants  even  wore  high  hats,  and  the  Asiatics 
appeared  in  all  the  glory  of  their  native  finery ;  but  all 
alike  were  dripping  with  perspiration,  and  buying  and 
selling  quite  oblivious  to  the  pitiless  rays  of  a  vertical 
sun  that  was  beating  down  upon  them.  We  watched 
them  until  we  were  ready  to  drop,  and  then  suddenly 
messengers  from  Heaven,  as  we  call  them  now,  four 
Chinamen,  stood  before  us.  They  were  rather  smartly 
dressed  in  a  loose-fitting  white  duck  livery  trimmed  with 
red  braid,  and  they  asked  us  in  their  cockney  English, 
smiling  blandly  the  while,  "  'Ave  a  chair,  sir  ?  "  For  all 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  123 

> 

answer  I  climbed  into  one,  Jim  plunged  into  the  second, 
and  these  deceptive  giants,  without  a  visible  muscle  in 
their  bodies,  carried  us  up  the  steep  streets,  and  scaled 
terrace  after  terrace,  until  at  last,  and  apparently  as  cool 
as  when  the  climb  began,  they  dumped  us  out  at  a  station 
of  the  Funicular  Railway  that  runs  up  the  mountain. 
We  were  on  the  second  tier  of  the  city  now,  where  the 
air  was  breathable  and  the  heat  more  tolerable.  I 
regret  to  say  that  we  only  paid  those  good  Samaritans, 
who  saved  us  from  the  stifling  heat  of  the  Hong  Kong 
rialto,  something  less,  considerably  less,  than  we  would 
have  paid  to  have  our  boots  blacked  in  New  York.  We 
were  compelled  to  restrain  our  appreciation  of  what  we 
owed  them  by  a  Sepoy  policeman,  who  stood  impertur- 
bable and  statuesque  on  guard  at  the  entrance,  who,  as 
we  knew,  would  run  the  coolies  in  if  they  accepted 
more  than  the  legal  tariff. 

In  a  very  few  minutes  we  were  whisked  up  the  steep 
ascent,  in  and  out  of  which  the  Funicular  Railway 
climbs  like  a  corkscrew ;  now  we  dove  through  a  tunnel, 
now  we  were  creeping  around  the  outside  of  the  rock 
with  the  shipping  in  the  harbor  2000  feet  directly 
beneath  us,  and  there  wasn't  a  moment  but  when  it 
seemed  to  us  that  the  little  cars,  pony  engine  and  all, 
were  in  imminent  danger  of  falling  back  into  the  stifling 
depths  from  which  we  had  dared  to  soar  in  search  of  a 
breeze.  We  stopped  for  a  few  moments  at  an  inter- 
mediate station,  or  terrace,  where  a  little  round  space, 
only  large  enough  for  a  village  cart  to  turn  in,  had  been 
blasted  out  of  the  solid  rock,  and  here  some  of  the 


124  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

weary  brokers  who  had  come  up  with  us  panting  and 
perspiring  from  the  black  hole  below,  were  received  by 
their  wives  and  their  children,  and  hurried  off  in  chairs 
or  in  pony  carts  to  the  really  serious  business  of  the 
day,  such  as  cricket,  tennis,  or  croquet.  Then  we  went 
on  taking  a  short  cut  through  a  spur  of  the  mountain, 
or  creeping  cautiously  along  the  ragged  edge  of  a  preci- 
pice, until  at  last  we  came  out  upon  the  crest  of  the 
peak.  A  great  plateau  has  been  made  by  blasting  and 
filling  in,  and  here,  away  up  among  the  clouds,  have 
been  built  a  number  of  sanitaria  and  hospitals.  Here, 
those  who  have  worn  out  their  strength  of  mind  and 
body,  in  the  task  of  constructing  a  city,  and  carrying 
on  a  trade  like  that  of  Hong  Kong,  so  far  from  a  civil- 
ized base,  and  with  nature  and  every  element  adverse  to 
the  undertaking,  are  brought  to  recuperate  or  die. 
Some  of  these  men  we  saw,  as  they  dragged  themselves 
about,  or  limped  along  the  hospital  paths.  They  were 
drinking  in  greedily  the  cool  damp  air  of  the  evening, 
and  looking  down  over  the  precipice,  with  hungry  pen- 
sive eyes,  to  where  the  steamers  were  coming  and  going, 
and  the  roar  of  trade  was  never  hushed. 

Jim,  who  had  been  weakening  for  some  time,  was  on 
the  point  of  confessing  the  wrong  he  had  done  the 
Britishers,  but  there  was  still  a  touch  of  hostility  in  the 
outburst  of  admiration  which  came  from  him  now, 
simply  because  he  could  no  longer  repress  it. 

"  These  people  are  no  slouches,  don't  make  any  mis- 
take about  that,"  he  said.  "  I  have  seen  towns  grow  up 
in  a  night  in  Oklahoma  and  '  bust  up  or  move  on '  be- 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  125 

fore  noon,  or  get  to  be  big  cities  in  a  month,  but  I  don't 
remember  having  seen  anything  that  can  touch  this  Hong 
Kong  rock.  Of  course  San  Francisco  and  Chicago 
are  a  very  little  older  than  this  place ;  but  Great  Scott ! 
they  had  to  happen,  there  was  no  helping  it,  there  were 
on  hand  all  the  facilities  for  a  great  city,  before  even  a 
house  was  built,  but  here  there  was  nothing,  not  even  a 
site,  and  they  had  to  prepare  the  land  to  build  their 
city  on." 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  I  take  off  my  hat  to  Hong  Kong." 
"This  is  no  time  to  take  off  our  hats,"  answered  Jim, 
doggedly,  "  what  we've  got  to  do  is  to  take  off  our  coats 
and  pitch  in."  .  .  . 

The  following  morning  Jim  had  an  idea  which  we 
immediately  voted  but  little  short  of  brilliant.  The 
skipper  told  us  he  had  received  permission  to  dock, 
and  that  the  repairs  which  he  found  necessary,  would 
occupy  at  least  five  days,  so  Jim  suggested  that  we 
"jolly"  the  colonel,  and  get  leave  from  him  to  visit 
Canton  and  Macoa,  which  are,  as  you  know,  only  a  few 
hours'  sail  from  here.  The  fact  is  that  we  were  both 
getting  a  little  weary  of  cementing  what  Jim  called 
"  the  Shakespeare  and  blood  -  is  -  thicker  -  than  -  water 
alliance  "  —  and  the  banquets  and  the  "  smokers  "  with 
which  our  British  cousins  thought  to  strengthen  the 
natural  ties  were  becoming  not  a  little  monotonous. 
The  moment  the  Sherman  appeared  off  the  port,  we 
had  been  invited  to  dine  the  following  evening  at  the 
mess  of  the  Queens'  Own  Rifles,  and  the  Queen's  Corps 
of  Guides  was  to  give  a  smoker  for  the  men. 


126  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

"I  can't  possibly  chew  that  rag  all  over  again,"  said 
Jim.  "  I  did  it  at  Gibraltar,  and  Malta,  and  Port  Said 
and  Colombo,  but  never  again,  so  help  me !  "  So  we 
decided  to  "work"  the  colonel  and  secure  leave. 

Jim,  the  young  rascal,  had  more  reason  than  any  one 
of  us  to  keep  away  from  these  love-feasts  just  at  present, 
for  it  had  leaked  out  in  Singapore  that  it  was  his  uncle, 
a  lieutenant  in  the  old  navy,  who  had  played  the  prin- 
cipal part  with  Commodore  Tattnall  in  the  original 
"  blood  -  is  -  thicker  -  than  -  water  "  incident.  Of  course, 
the  moment  our  mess  got  wind  of  this,  a  plot  was 
formed  to  sacrifice  Jim  at  the  very  next  banquet,  as  an 
offering  upon  the  altar  of  the  Anglo-American  Alliance 
and  make  him  "do  a  speech,"  as  they  say  out  here. 
Jim  was  apprehensive  of  some  such  move  as  this,  and 
was  willing  to  go  even  sight-seeing  in  order  that  he 
might  defeat  the  conspiracy  of  his  messmates.  We 
soon  succeeded  in  getting  the  colonel  in  a  good  humor, 
—  you  remember  how  that  is  done,  —  leading  him  on  to 
tell  how  it  was  that  General  Meade  or  General  Han- 
cock, I  forget  which,  had  merely  acted  upon  his  sugges- 
tion, when  he  took  possession  of  Little  Round  Top 
and  intrenched  there  the  night  before  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg.  "And  that  is  why,  my  boy,  I  celebrate 
the  victory  on  the  anniversary  of  the  day  before  the 
battle  was  fought,  just  as  Von  Moltke  did  about  Sedan, 
and  you  know  I  never  got  even  the  recognition  of  a 
brevet." 

We  mingled  our  tears  with  the  colonel's,  discoursed 
at  some  length  upon  the  ingratitude  of  republics,  and 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  127 

then  having  secured  our  leave  and  promised  to  avoid 
the  plague  as  far  as  we  could  consistently  with  seeing 
all  the  sights,  we  hurried  away. 

Now  that  there  was  not  the  slightest  danger  of  being 
compelled  to  do  it  before  the  Britishers,  Jim  was  not  at 
all  averse  to  telling  the  real  story  of  the  blood-is-thicker- 
than-water  episode,  and  as  it  is  short,  and  differs  from 
the  other  more  popular  versions  in  that  it  is  true,  I  will 
tell  it  to  you. 

The  British,  under  Admiral  Beresford  Hope,  in  1859, 
while  trying  to  cross  the  Taku  bar,  which  is  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  Pei-Ho  River  in  northern  China,  it  seems, 
got  into  a  terrific  cross-fire  from  the  Bogue  Forts.  The 
gunboat  Plover  was  in  a  very  few  minutes  disabled, 
and  the  admiral  wounded ;  his  boat  was  at  the  mercy 
of  the  enemy,  and  the  signals  which  he  sent  up  for  as- 
sistance remained  unanswered,  because  all  the  other  ves- 
sels of  the  squadron  had  their  hands  full  to  keep  afloat. 
Commodore  Tattnall,  seeing  from  his  flagship,  where,  as 
a  neutral,  he  was  watching  the  fight,  the  sad  plight  into 
which  his  friend,  Admiral  Beresford  Hope,  had  fallen, 
turned  to  his  two  lieutenants  who  were  standing  with 
him,  Robert  Pegram  of  Virginia,  and  Lieutenant  Rolando 
of  Maryland,  and  said,  "  I  want  each  of  you  to  take  a 
cutter's  crew  and  board  the  Plover  and  ask  the  admiral 
if  there  is  anything  you  can  do  for  him,  and  do  any 
blank  thing  he  tells  you  to,  and  you  can  stay  away  as 
long  as  you  like." 

The  cutters  were  rowed  through  the  murderous  fire, 
suffering,  luckily,  but  few  casualties.  When  Pegram 


128  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

boarded  the  Plover,  he  found  that  the  English  had 
suffered  so  terribly  from  the  Chinese  fire  that  they  only 
had  men  enough  left  to  work  one  gun.  He  and  his 
crew  buckled  down  to  work  with  a  will,  and  fought  all 
the  guns  of  the  Plover  that  had  not  been  dismounted, 
with  such  good  effect  that  the  Chinese  fire  grew  wild, 
and  at  last  our  men  were  able  to  withdraw  the  British 
gunboat  from  its  position  of  extreme  danger.  The  Eng- 
lish Admiralty  presented  Pegram  with  a  gold  sword  in 
recognition  of  his  gallantry  and  pensioned  the  families 
of  our  sailors  who  were  killed,  and  it  was  only  when 
the  Navy  Department  in  Washington  hauled  Commo- 
dore Tattnall  over  the  coals  that  he  made  his  celebrated 
defence  with  the  words,  "  Blood  is  thicker  than  water."1 
There  was  a  delay  of  at  least  half  an  hour  in  the 
departure  of  the  old  side-wheel  steamer  that  runs  to 
Macoa  and  Canton,  and  when  I  tell  you  the  reason  of 
it,  I  fear  you  will  conclude  that  I  am  availing  myself 
of  the  traveller's  privilege  in  exceeding  the  strict  bounds 
of  truth ;  for  further  evidence  and  corroboration,  how- 
ever, I  refer  you  to  Heth.  The  thermometer  stood  at 
1 06°  Fahrenheit,  in  the  cabin  there  was  not  a  breath  of 
air  stirring,  the  vertical  sun  shot  down  its  long  spear- 
like  shafts  from  the  peak ;  and  it  was  such  a  day  as  this, 
whether  you  believe  me  or  not,  that  a  young  man  of  the 
Imperial  Chinese  Customs  service,  the  outdoor  staff,  had 
chosen  to  be  married. 

1  In  the  official  accounts  which  have  come  under  my  notice,  and  notably 
in  Maclay's  History  of  the  Navy,  Commodore  Tattnall,  it  is  stated,  went 
to  the  assistance  of  Admiral  Hope  in  person. — THE  EDITOR. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  129 

I  think  I  have  told  you  in  a  previous  letter  how 
deeply  impressed  I  was  by  the  British  peace  which 
now  reigns  throughout  the  Indian  Empire,  and  you  are 
aware  of  the  admiration  I  conceived  for  the  handful  of 
civil  servants  and  the  little  army  which,  working  harmo- 
niously together,  have  accomplished  this  great  result. 
Again,  I  confess  my  opinion  of  the  Britishers  rose  100 
per  cent  when  I  saw  the  "  raters "  holding  a  mass- 
meeting  one  afternoon  in  Gibraltar  to  protest  against  a 
new  tax,  and  their  boys  playing  football  while  the  hot 
sirocco  winds  coming  from  the  Sahara  made  the  rock 
almost  unbearable  except  for  lizards.  I  think  I  have 
given  them  due  credit  for  all  these  performances.  Cer- 
tainly they  impressed  me  greatly,  but  I  did  not  fully  un- 
derstand in  what  the  superiority  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  over 
the  Frenchman  consists,  until  I  saw  this  young  Britisher 
daring  to  take  to  his  bosom  a  lawfully  wedded  wife  at 
such  a  temperature,  and  recalled  by  way  of  contrast  the 
scene  of  the  tawdry,  yellow-haired  women  on  the  French 
transport,  and  the  stout  officials  who  were  lolling  about 
upon  the  deck  reading  yellow-covered  literature  of  the 
kind  that  is  sold  in  Paris  pour  lire  au  bain. 

The  wedding  cortege,  when  at  last  it  did  appear, 
was  composed  of  a  number  of  decidedly  plain-looking 
girls  in  lawn  dresses,  and  a  number  of  young  men  in 
rusty  black  frock-coats.  They  came  on  board  in  bro- 
ken columns,  and,  as  Jim  said,  their  marching  was 
beneath  contempt.  They  were  headed  by  a  band  play- 
ing "Auld  Lang  Syne"  and  "Rule  Britannia,"  while 
the  musical  interludes  were  interspersed  with  cheers  for 


1 3o  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

the  bride  and  then  for  the  band,  with  a  tiger.  At  last 
the  long-suffering  captain  blew  the  warning  whistle,  but 
a  committee  of  the  celebrants  went  up  to  the  deck-house 
and  to  our  great  disgust  secured  another  postponement, 
and  then  the  final  ceremonies  began.  The  ushers  burst 
out  into  joyous  song,  some  shouting,  "  For  he's  a  jolly 
good  fellow,"  while  others  asserted,  "  We  won't  go  home 
until  morning."  The  bridegroom  seemed  absolutely 
speechless  —  with  his  great  happiness  or  the  effects  of 
the  bottle  of  champagne  of  a  particularly  wildcat  colo- 
nial brand  which  he  clutched  in  his  hand.  Then  the 
best  man  was  raised  on  the  shoulders  of  the  ushers  and 
began  to  make  a  speech. 

"Gentlemen  and  ladies,"  he  began,  "I  am  sure  that 
I  only  voice  the  unanimous  sentiment  of  this  meeting 
when  I  say  that  we  all  wish  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Black  a  pleas- 
ant journey  to  Macoa,  and  I  hope  I  am  not  going  too 
far  when  I  add  through  life,  and  many  more  of  them 
and  —  and  as  often  as  they  like,  and  we  all  hope  that 
wherever  they  go  they  may  never  have  to  sit  on  the 
Bombay  side  of  the  punkah,  and  —  and "  l 

Here  the  blessed  band  broke  in  with  "  Annie  Laurie," 
and  the  ushers  grabbed  the  groom  and  hoisted  him  up 


1  In  the  East,  except  in  very  smart  houses  where  two  punkahs  are  kept 
going  in  the  dining  room,  the  single  punkah  hangs  directly  over  the  din- 
ing-rootn  table.  The  side  of  the  punkah  which  is  nearest  to  the  punkah 
"  boy  "  is  called  the  Calcutta  side,  and  is  very  much  cooler  than  the  other 
on  the  Bombay  side,  because  the  punkah  fans  the  air  more  vigorously  when 
pulled  by  the  boy  toward  him  than  when  it  falls  back  into  place  by  its 
own  weight.  Only  "  detrimentals  "  are  placed  on  the  Bombay  side  of  the 
punkah.  —THE  EDITOR. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  i3I 

on  their  shoulders  and  marched  him  up  and  down  the 
deck,  while  the  anxious  bride,  for  marrying  men  are 
scarce  in  Hong  Kong,  ran  after  them  shrieking  :  "  Don't 
'it  'is  'ead,  boys.  Don't  'it  'is  'ead."  Then  everybody 
clamored  for  a  speech.  "  Do  a  speech,  a  short  one, 
won't  you  ? "  Now  a  speech  was  evidently  the  last  thing 
the  bridegroom  wanted  to  "  do  "  at  this  moment.  How- 
ever, there  was  no  help  for  it;  custom  had  evidently 
made  it  a  part  of  the  ceremony  that  was  no  more  to  be 
omitted  than  the  ring.  So,  brandishing  the  bottle  which 
he  still  held  in  his  hand,  he  began :  — 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  have  to  thank  you  from 
an  overflowing  heart  for  all  the  kind  things  which 
have  been  said  at  this  meeting  about  me  and  my 
dawling " 

Here  a  furious  outburst  of  the  band,  a  blast  from  the 
steam  whistle,  and  a  string  of  oaths  from  the  now 
impatient  captain,  put  an  end  to  the  ceremonies,  and 
the  bridal  party  and  the  band  raced  for  the  gang-plank, 
while  the  bride,  who  was  still  all  there,  took  her  some- 
what dazed  consort  by  the  arm,  and  said  as  she  led  him 
gently,  but  firmly  into  the  cabin :  — 

"  Did  they  'urt  my  dawling's  'ead  ? " 

And  that  was  the  last  of  the  bridal  party,  as  far  as 
we  are  concerned,  though  not,  I  take  it,  for  the  British 
Empire.  .  .  . 

A  few  hours  later,  and  a  bit  of  Europe  or  rather  of 
the  Mediterranean  littoral  rose  before  us  out  of  the  yel- 
low waters  of  China.  What  a  scene  it  was  for  the  color- 
ist,  what  a  picture  for  the  painter  in  words,  when  Macoa, 


i32  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

with  its  ruined  forts  and  moss-covered  battlements,  stood 
before  us !  Great  bronze  cannon  glistening  in  the  sun- 
light frowned  down  upon  us  and  upon  all  unbelieving 
dogs.  Every  hillside  was  crowned  with  a  church  which 
looked  as  though  it  had  been  translated  over  night  from 
Coimbra  or  Oporto  —  and  from  every  steeple  there 
looked  down  upon  us  the  cross  of  the  church  militant 
and  from  every  battlement  the  standard  of  the  Very 
Faithful  King  of  Portugal. 

Within  the  sanctuaries  of  these  deserted  shrines,  as  we 
learned  on  the  following  day,  when  we  pushed  our 
way  through  the  network  of  cobwebs,  so  rarely  dis- 
turbed, that  guards  their  gates,  are  still  burning  the 
votive  candles  and  the  lamps  which  the  great  naviga- 
tors who  followed  the  flag  of  Prince  Henry  lit  to  burn 
for  all  time  as  an  offering  of  gratitude  to  Our  Lady 
of  the  Storms  for  favors  vouchsafed  while  at  the  mercy 
of  the  elements  upon  these  once  trackless  and  always 
storm-tossed  seas. 

The  illusion  was  so  perfect,  I  was  so  sure  that  this 
could  not  be  an  Asiatic  port,  that  I  found  myself  look- 
ing about  for  the  lateen-rigged  ships  of  the  midland  sea 
and  the  red-sailed  feluccas.  Soon,  however,  the  illusion 
was  dissipated  by  a  flotilla  of  sampans  which  came  out 
from  the  shore  to  meet  us.  For  some  minutes  now  our 
great  side-wheels  had  been  churning  up  the  by  no 
means  fragrant  mud  of  the  harbor,  without  making  any 
appreciable  progress,  and  at  last  our  captain  frankly  ad- 
mitted that  we  were  fast  aground,  and  had  better  make 
the  best  arrangements  we  could  to  be  taken  ashore. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  133 

"While  the  Dons  are  sleeping,"  he  added,  with  an 
oath,  "  the  river  is  silting  up.  In  another  two  or  three 
years  nothing  drawing  more  water  than  a  flat-bottomed 
scow  will  be  able  to  enter  Macoa ;  the  place  is  dying  of 
dry  rot.  Only  on  Good  Friday  is  there  a  bit  of  a  stir ; 
then  the  sailors  who  live  on  board  the  water-logged  gun- 
boats you  see  over  there  hang  a  bogus  Judas  to  the 
yard-arm,  and  fill  him  full  of  lead,  and  that's  the  only 
practice  of  the  Christian  religion  I  ever  saw  them 
engaged  upon." 

Night  was  falling  rapidly,  and  as  the  distant  medi- 
aeval town  did  not  give  promise  of  a  Christian  lodg- 
ing, we  put  a  bridle  upon  our  curiosity  and  slept  on 
board,  and  only  landed  when  the  day  was  dawning  and 
the  air  was  heavy  with  the  fragrance  of  the  orange 
blossom  and  the  jasmine  flower,  which  the  gentle  land 
breeze  wafted  out  into  the  bay.  Bells  were  tolling  in 
every  church  tower,  and  through  the  narrow  streets,  the 
ruas,  and  the  travesias  of  the  Bom  Jesu  and  San  Juan 
Baptista  (streets  I  call  them,  though  they  really  looked 
more  like  well-worn  gutters),  the  women  were  creep- 
ing to  church  swathed  in  black  mass  mantles,  through 
which  now  and  again  a  bright  eye  flashed.  For  half  an 
hour  after  landing  we  groped  about  like  blind  men  in 
the  shadow  of  the  high  walls  and  the  great  churches. 
It  was  too  dark  to  find  one's  way  about,  and  as  the  matin 
services  were  in  full  swing,  there  was  no  one  left  outside 
to  guide  us,  and  we  were  constantly  bumping  our  heads 
against  a  wall  which  would  prove  to  be  the  abrupt  end 
of  some  blind  alley.  We  were  more  than  glad  when  the 


134  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  £ 

warm  sunshine  came  and  the  dark  shadows  were  chased 
back  into  their  hiding-places,  and  we  saw  the  yellow 
houses,  the  bright  green  Venetians,  the  blue  stuccoed 
columns,  and  so  caught  our  first  glimpse  of  the  real 
Macoa,  wrapped  in  the  time-worn  garment  of  her  ancient 
glories ;  wrapped  in  them  as  in  a  shroud,  for  this  outpost 
of  European  civilization  upon  the  east  coast  of  Asia  for 
so  many  generations,  is  dead,  past  recall,  and  those  dark, 
mysterious,  and  muffled  figures,  of  which,  now  and  again, 
we  caught  sight,  as  with  noiseless  tread  they  flitted 
down  the  narrow  winding  streets,  seemed  to  be  but 
unsubstantial  shadows  of  the  remote  past. 

The  business  quarter  of  the  town,  in  which  I  do  not 
include  the  deserted  barracoons,  those  ghastly  prison 
houses  which  tell  of  the  day,  so  very  recent,  when 
Macoa  was  the  chief  emporium  of  the  yellow  slave 
trade,  does  not  occupy  to-day  more  space  than  is  con- 
tained in  two  of  our  city  blocks.  So  we  were  not  in  the 
least  surprised  to  learn  that  only  three  foreign  hongs  of 
any  importance  survive  in  this  the  former  emporium  of 
the  East.  To  the  tai-pan  or  ranking  partner  of  one 
of  those  hongs  our  consul  in  Hong  Kong  had  given 
us  a  letter  of  introduction,  and  this  letter,  notwithstand- 
ing the  unseasonable  hour,  we  now  set  out  to  deliver, 
but  we  were  soon  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was 
no  more  difficult  to  find  a  needle  in  a  haystack  than 
"  Ewo  No.  i,"  the  official  Chinese  title  of  the  hong  in 
question,  in  this  shrunken  Portuguese  settlement.  We 
were  very  hungry  and  tired,  I  can  assure  you,  and  at  our 
wits'  end  as  to  what  we  should  do,  when  there  came 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  135 

walking  down  the  lane  into  which  our  wanderings  had 
brought  us,  a  very  refined  and  aristocratic  looking  old 
gentleman,  who  wore  a  high  hat,  and  bore  himself  for 
all  the  world  as  though  he  had  just  stepped  out  of  a 
Velasquez  canvas  to  have  an  airing.  With  some 
anxiety,  for  I  confess  I  was  apprehensive  that  at  the 
first  sound  of  my  voice  this  strange  figure  would  vanish 
into  thin  air,  I  asked  him  to  direct  us  to  the  English 
merchant's  place  of  business.  I  addressed  him  in  Eng- 
lish, which,  as  it  turned  out,  he  spoke  like  any  character 
you  please  in  an  old  play,  and  I  must  add  that,  though 
not  informing,  he  was  politeness  itself.  At  the  first 
word  of  my  inquiry  he  came  to  a  standstill,  and  removed 
his  hat,  describing  with  it  a  most  sweeping  bow.  Then 
he  began  to  ponder  over  the  question  which  I  put,  and 
there  was  a  long  pause  that  made  us  fidget.  Finally  he 
pulled  himself  together  and  said  :  — 

"  I  am  sorry,  gentlemen,  I  cannot  serve  you  in  this 
matter.  The  fact  is,  I  did  know  where  the  hong  to  which 
you  refer  is  situated,  but  unfortunately  I  have  forgot- 
ten it.  I  must  pray  you  forgive  me.  The  fact  is  that 
with  the  busy  rushing  lives  we  lead  there  is  so  much  to 
remember  that  one  forgets  many  important  matters." 

And  then  with  another  sweeping  pukka  Portuguese 
bow  he  ambled  on  down  the  street.  Jim  and  I  wondered 
not  a  little  what  the  weighty  matters  might  be  that 
filled  his  mind  to  the  exclusion  of  all  knowledge  of 
locality,  but  our  curiosity  was  not  satisfied  until 
the  following  day,  when  we  were  told  that  the  old 
gentleman  we  had  accosted  in  this  manner  was  the 


136  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

last  lineal  descendant  of  the  great  Magellan.  Then  we 
understood  how  full  of  sadness  his  thoughts  must  be, 
how  bitter  his  reflections  as  he  wandered  about  the 
narrow,  deserted  streets  of  this  petty  colony,  the  ignoble 
remnant  of  the  mighty  empire  which  his  illustrious  an- 
cestor gave  to  Portugal. 

Though  somewhat  disheartened  we  kept  on  until 
at  last  fortune  favored  us  and  we  discovered  our 
English  merchant  in  the  basement  of  a  building,  that 
had  every  appearance  of  being  a  fifteenth-century 
Italian  palace.  He  greeted  us  with  cheers.  I  can  tell 
you  it  is  a  pleasure  to  present  a  letter  in  Macoa.  They 
are  that  glad  to  see  you !  He  immediately  aroused  his 
Portuguese  clerks,  and  told  them  to  go  and  sleep  some- 
where else,  as  he  proposed  to  close  up  shop  and  show 
us  the  sights. 

"  I  say,  what  a  lark ! "  said  our  new  friend.  "  What 
do  you  say  to  a  day  up  the  river  snipe  shooting  ?  I  have 
all  the  togs  and  mosquito  masks  that  you  will  need." 

We  were,  however,  firm  in  declining  this  invitation, 
so  he  led  us  off  to  see  the  Leal  Senado  or  Council 
Chamber.  This  sight  should  not  be  overlooked  by  any 
one  visiting  the  city.  It  is  an  imposing  building  of 
hard  stone,  and  built  very  much  in  the  shape  (though 
on  a  larger  scale)  of  the  old  mission  houses  one 
stumbles  upon,  even  to-day,  in  southern  California  and 
in  New  Mexico.  As  we  walked  through  the  basement, 
we  floundered  through  an  acre  or  so  of  what  appeared 
to  be  wood  pulp ;  but  Mr.  Burton  told  us  it  is  all  that 
remains  of  the  archives  of  Portuguese  India,  which  only 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  137 

a  few  years  ago  was  the  most  complete  set  of  docu- 
ments relating  to  the  early  history  of  European  coloni- 
zation and  commerce  in  East  Asia  that  was  to  be  found. 
As  ill  luck  would  have  it,  however,  there  came  some 
years  ago  an  earthquake  wave,  the  basement  of  the 
building  was  flooded  and  the  documents  are  lying  there 
still.  I  only  wish  I  could  think  they  are  drying  out; 
but  the  fact  is  these  papers  are  nearly  all  irretrievably 
ruined  by  exposure  and  their  contents  lost  to  history. 

We  went  upstairs  and  into  the  Council  Chamber  on 
tiptoe,  for  the  Leal  Senado  was  in  session,  discussing, 
as  it  turned  out,  the  ceremonial  to  be  observed  upon 
the  departure  of  the  retiring  governor,  and  the  installa- 
tion of  his  successor,  which  was  to  take  place  the  fol- 
lowing day.  In  the  great  darkened  Council  Chamber 
we  had  our  first  view  of  the  venerable-looking  legisla- 
tors, who  are  associated  with  the  governor  in  the 
administration  of  the  colony.  They  were  all  seated 
stiffly  in  high-backed  Cordovan  leather  chairs.  They 
were  dressed  in  rusty  black  frock-coats,  and  were  stern, 
forbidding,  almost  Cato-like  in  appearance.  Later  on, 
when  we  visited  the  gambling  hells,  the  fan-tan  games, 
and  the  other  licensed  dens  of  vice,  for  which  this  colony 
is  infamous  throughout  the  East,  we  came  to  the  con- 
clusion, and  it  was  not  a  rash  one,  that  the  Conscript 
Fathers  of  Macoa  are  very  approachable  if  you  only 
know  how  to  go  about  it. 

One  could  not  see  without  a  feeling  of  regret  the 
faded  portraits  of  the  great  navigators  and  the  early 
administrators  of  the  empire  that  has  vanished,  looking 


138  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

down  from  the  dark  wainscoted  walls  in  all  the  dignity 
of  ruff  and  sword,  upon  the  deliberations  of  their  un- 
worthy successors,  whose  sole  thought  in  life  is  how  to 
squeeze  the  keepers  of  the  gambling  tables,  and  levy 
blackmail  upon  the  Chinese  stews  that  flourish  in  their 
jurisdiction.  Facing  the  council  table,  covered  with 
gold-lacquered  despatch  boxes,  there  was  a  raised  dais 
and  an  imposing  red  plush  chair,  covered  with  gold 
lace,  the  vice-regal  throne,  in  fact,  where  the  retiring 
governor  had  sat  for  the  last  time,  and  where  his  suc- 
cessor was  awaited.  You  will  understand  what  a  conserv- 
ative place  Macoa.is  when  I  tell  you,  and  Mr.  Burton 
is  my  authority,  that  histories  which  speak  of  the  union 
existing  between  Spain  and  Portugal  during  the  reign 
of  Philip  II.,  are  not  admitted  into  the  colony  to  this 
day,  and  that  the  loyal  city  ignores  the  American  inde- 
pendence movement,  even  to  the  extent  of  still  regard- 
ing the  Brazils  as  an  appanage  of  the  Portuguese  crown, 
though,  as  you  know,  they  were  well  lost  to  the  little 
kingdom  many  years  ago.  With  these  facts,  which  our 
guide  gave  us  to  prepare  us  for  what  was  to  come,  we 
were  not  surprised  to  find  that  the  arms  and  the  shield 
,  which  preside  over  the  sessions  of  this  "  loyal  senate  " 
to-day  are  identically  the  same  as  those  with  which 
Prince  Henry  sailed  the  seas,  and  Dom  Sebastian  went 
to  the  African  war,  when  the  "  ever  faithful "  kings 
were  nearly,  if  not  quite  the  over-lords  of  the  world, 
and  deserved  some  of  the  grandiloquent  titles,  such  as 
"  King  of  Portugal  and  the  Algarves,  Lord  of  the  Con- 
quest, Navigation,  and  Commerce  of  Ethiopia,  Arabia, 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  139 

Persia,  and  India,"  with  which  they  are  still  acclaimed 
to-day,  at  least  in  the  halls  of  this  loyal  senate. 

I  confess  to  a  feeling  of  anger,  a  strong  impulse  to 
tear  it  down,  and  save  it  from  further  desecration,  as  I 
saw  the  old  battle  flag  of  the  dauntless  navigators  in  the 
hands  of  their  degenerate  successors,  but  there  it  flies  to- 
day over  this  wretched  nest  of  gambling  hells,  with  the 
white  and  winged  angels  which  the  Portuguese  followed 
in  their  better  days,  and  one  of  these  angels  is  grasping  a 
globe,  upon  which  South  America  is  pictured,  while  the 
other  brandishes  a  cross.  I  wonder  when  the  higher 
criticism  will  fall  foul  of  these  angels  ?  .  .  . 

Soon  we  started  out  again  into  the  perplexing  laby- 
rinth of  the  old  mediaeval  city,  to  which,  however,  our 
friend  Burton  held  the  clew.  Though  it  was  now  ten 
o'clock,  the  busy  hour  of  the  day  out  here,  the  narrow 
streets  were  still  dark  and  almost  wholly  deserted. 
Once  in  a  great  while,  pattering  along  these  echoing 
galleries,  which  in  Macoa  do  service  for  streets,  we 
rrffet  a  couple  of  olive-skinned  priests  or  monks.  It  is, 
as  our  guide  told  us,  their  invariable  custom  never  to 
call  alone  upon  their  parishioners  or  friends,  but  always 
in  pairs.  The  purpose  of  this  precaution  is,  of  course, 
to  give  as  little  rein  as  possible  to  gossip,  and  yet,  far 
from  being  disarmed,  I  found  that  scandal  flourishes  in 
Macoa  as  nowhere  else  in  the  world. 

The  stately  old  houses  which  line  the  narrow  streets 
are  built,  for  the  most  part,  very  like  what  I  imagine 
the  palaces  of  the  peninsula  to  be,  with  great  imposing 
gateways  of  granite  and  facades  of  softer  stone  on 


140  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

which  are  carved  the  arms  and  the  heraldic  bearings  of 
the  great  families  that  once  dwelt  here.  A  great  gate- 
way, once  defended  by  heavy  bolts  and  massive  bars 
but  now  swinging  idly  open,  leads  generally  through  the 
first  house  to  the  inner  patio  and  the  living  apartments. 
Once  you  penetrate  here,  the  palaces  present  a  different 
aspect.  Under  the  softening  influences  of  the  babbling 
waters  and  the  all-prevailing  fragrance  of  the  magnolias 
and  the  orange  trees  which  overrun  these  sunny  court- 
yards, the  stern  features  of  the  deserted  fortresses 
relax.  .  .  . 

When  I  saw  to  what  ignoble  uses  these  stately 
homes  of  a  dauntless  race  are  put,  I  felt  the  crusading 
spirit  kindling  within  me  apace;  for  yo*u  must  know, 
though  I  spoil  my  picture  in  telling  you,  that  these 
over-sea  homes  of  the  Da  Gamas,  the  Albuquerques, 
and  the  Magellans  are  occupied  to-day  by  hundreds 
and  even  thousands  of  Chinese,  in  a  great  part  refu- 
gees from  justice,  to  whom  this  degenerate  Portuguese 
colony  is  a  secure  Alsatia,  if  their  crimes  have  been  but 
profitable  and  they  bring  money. 

By  the  side  of  the  great  gateways  there  is  always  a 
niche  in  the  stone  wall,  in  which,  behind  an  iron  screen, 
once  stood  the  image  of  Our  Lady,  or  perhaps  the 
patron  saint  of  the  house ;  but  to-day  all  these  blessed 
images  are  gone,  the  niches  are  vacant,  except  now  and 
again,  where  you  see  that  the  soft-eyed  meridional  Ma- 
donna has  been  displaced  by  a  grinning  Chinese  idol,  at 
whose  feet  burns  a  lurid  lantern,  or  a  cupful  of  most 
unfragrant  "joss"  papers,  which  the  Chinese  light  as 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  141 

they  approach  their  god  with  petitions,  which  are,  I  am 
told,  almost  exclusively  requests  that  they  may  be  given  a 
little  advance  information  as  to  the  lucky  numbers  in  the 
forthcoming  lottery ;  and  over  the  whole  place  hangs  that 
all-pervading  smell  of  stale  opium  which  I  shall  never 
forget.  Ugh !  Even  the  memory  of  it  is  nauseating. 

We  now  walked  in  the  direction  of  the  East  India 
Company's  cemetery,  where,  as  Burton  assured  us, 
there  were  interesting  things  to  be  seen.  Looking  down 
from  the  great  plaza  before  the  cathedral,  however,  we 
caught  sight  of  several  columns  of  smoke  and  flame 
slowly  rising  up  out  of  one  of  the  low  lying  quarters  of 
the  town. 

"  Down  there,"  said  Burton,  in  answer  to  our  look  of 
inquiry,  "  is  the  dirtiest  place  in  the  whole  sink ;  even 
the  Chinese  are  deserting  it,  and  our  fellows  have  come 
over  from  Hong  Kong  to  clean  it  up.  You  see  it  is  a 
terrible  bore  for  the  Hong  Kong  people  to  have  Macoa 
and  Canton  so  close  and  'contagious,'  as  the  wits  of 
the  Club  have  it.  I  believe  Hong  Kong  would  have  as 
clean  a  bill  of  health  as  Liverpool  or  Glasgow  if  it  were 
not  for  the  half-breeds  and  '  pigeon '  boys  from  Macoa, 
and  the  yellow  boys  from  Canton,  who  come  sneak- 
ing over  to  our  colony  in  sampans  loaded  down  with 
bundles  of  infected  rags,  and  then,  of  course,  however 
well  we  keep  our  rock  swabbed  down,  the  plague  blazes 
out  again.  Latterly  our  fellows  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  only  way  to  keep  Hong  Kong  clean  is 
to  scrub  up  our  neighbors,  as  well  as  our  own  island,  and 
down  there  you  see  they  are  at  it." 


i42  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Very  much  pleased  that  we  should  take  an  interest  in 
the  work,  Burton  at  our  request  led  the  way  down  the 
steep  descent  to  the  burning  slums.  At  the  bottom  we 
were  confronted  by  a  high  barricade,  with  but  a  single 
narrow  opening,  in  which  a  Sikh  sentinel  from  one  of 
the  Hong  Kong  regiments  stood  guard.  He  was  at 
least  six  feet  two  in  height,  broad-shouldered  and 
well  proportioned,  and  looked,  every  inch  of  him,  the 
ideal  soldier,  in  his  brown  khaki  uniform  and  snow- 
white  turban.  He  did  not  seem  to  understand  what 
Burton  told  him,  but  we  made  out  pretty  clearly  his 
position,  more  from  what  he  did  than  from  what  he  said, 
and  it  was  that  we  could  not  pass  the  barrier.  For 
some  moments  indeed  it  looked  as  though  our  curiosity 
would  have  to  go  unsatisfied,  when  suddenly  another 
man  appeared  on  the  scene,  popping  out  of  a  narrow 
alley  into  the  main  street  just  opposite  where  we  stood. 
I  do  not  think  I  ever  had  an  exact  idea  of  the  mud- 
larkers  of  the  Thames,  of  whom  we  read  so  much  in 
Dickens,  until  I  caught  sight  of  this  figure.  He  wore 
a  pair  of  yellow  drill  overalls  rolled  up  to  the  thigh,  and 
was  stripped  naked  to  the  waist,  with  the  exception  of 
a  cholera  belt. 

"  Hello,  Burton,"  he  shouted,  catching  sight  of  our 
guide,  "we  are  doing  a  little  whitewashing.  Want  to 
have  a  look  around  ?  " 

And  upon  a  word  from  him  the  Sikh  drew  back  and 
we  passed  behind  the  barrier  and  down  the  street,  pick- 
ing our  way  through  the  rubbish  and  debris,  Burton's 
remarkable-looking  friend  leading  the  way  with  a 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  143 

pleasant  grin  upon  his  face,  and  carrying  his  pail  of 
disinfectant  and  a  great  broom,  with  which  he  sprinkled 
it  about  as  though  he  were  born  to  the  job. 

"  That's  Kennedy,  the  best  polo  player  in  the  Lan- 
cers," whispered  Burton  with  considerable  awe,  as  we 
pressed  on  after  the  cheerful  mud-larker. 

"  It  is  almost  a  toss-up,  Burton,"  Kennedy  called  back 
to  us,  "  which  are  the  more  inhuman,  the  half-breeds  or 
the  'yellow  boys,'  the  governor  or  the  coolies  of  this 
putrescent  place.  Old  Dom  Christoforo,  it  is  true,  gave 
us  the  glad  hand,  and  some  port  and  a  biscuit  when  we 
appeared  at  the  palace.  He  said  he  thought  everything 
had  been  exaggerated,  and  that  we  would  find  little  or 
no  trace  of  the  plague  in  the  slums,  only  he  permitted  us 
to  have  our  way  in  the  matter  because  of  the  earnest 
representations  of  our  governor,  and  the  traditional 
friendship  that  existed  between  Portugal  and  Great 
Britain.  He  made  haste,  however,  to  add,  that,  owing  to 
the  press  of  official  business,  he  would  not  be  able  to  re- 
ceive us  in  an  audience  of  farewell  after  the  job  was 
done.  Cute  of  the  old  boy,  wasn't  it  ?  They  say  he  is 
as  afraid  of  the  plague  as  he  is  of  the  Chinese  high- 
binders." 

While  we  picked  our  way  along  through  the  smoking 
debris  and  the  smouldering  ruins,  and  the  tarpaulins 
stretched  out  here  and  there,  which  at  once  covered,  and 
plainly  revealed  the  outlines  of,  the  bodies  that  lay  under- 
neath awaiting  the  burial  cart,  Kennedy  rattled  along, 
telling  Burton  how  he  and  Fassett  and  Hearn  and 
Mitchell-Innis  had  been  dying  for  something  to  do,  and 


144  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

how  they  had  wheedled  the  English  governor  into  lend- 
ing them  twenty  Sikhs  from  the  Hong  Kong  regiment, 
and  how  they  had  at  last  secured  his  blessing  and  carte 
blanche  to  go  ahead  and  clean  up  the  Portuguese  colony. 

"But  when  we  got  here,"  Kennedy  ran  on,  "we 
found  that  twenty  men  could  not  begin  to  do  the  busi- 
ness, so  we  put  our  heads  and  our  pockets  together,  and 
the  result  was  sixty  '  quid,'  and  a  determination  to  have 
our  fun  even  if  we  had  to  pay  for  it,  and  a  fellow  gener- 
ally has  to  do  that,  you  know,  first  or  last,  so  we  hired  a 
lot  of  Mozambique  niggers  from  the  Royal  Macoa  Guard, 
and  some  broken-down  fan-tan  players  at  sixpence  a 
day.  You  should  have  seen  their  mouths  water  at  the 
sight  of  silver,  and  we  rather  think  that  with  our  sixty 
quid  we  will  pull  off  the  trick  and  have  enough  left  to 
pay  for  a  dinner  to  celebrate  our  return  to  the  Peak." 

A  few  minutes  later,  throwing  aside  his  jocular  man- 
ner, he  added: — 

"These  people  have  no  more  humanity  than  rats. 
The  moment  the  plague  seizes  one  in  a  family  the 
rest  clear  out,  bag  and  baggage,  and  the  fellow  they 
leave  behind  can  have  his  choice  of  dying  from  the 
disease  or  starving.  We  have  come  across  not  a  few 
poor  beggars  alone  in  their  squalid,  deserted  tenements 
who  had  survived  the  disease,  but  who  could  not  recover 
owing  to  the  way  in  which  they  had  been  neglected." 

A  few  minutes  later  Kennedy  invited  us  to  join  him 
and  his  friend  at  tiffin.  It  was  served  by  two  Chinese 
boys  from  the  Hong  Kong  mess  upon  a  roof  of  a  house 
that  had  fallen  into  the  street,  and  with  as  much  form 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  145 

and  ceremony,  I  can  assure  you,  as  though  we  had  been 
seated  around  a  mahogany  table  at  the  Club.  We  all 
fell  to,  and  for  a  wonder,  as  it  seems  now,  although  at 
the  time  we  did  not  consider  our  surroundings,  but  only 
the  pangs  of  hunger,  we  all  ate  very  heartily.  At  last 
Jim  —  you  will  remember  we  used  to  call  him  the  "dip- 
lomat" at  Leavenworth  because  of  the  incorrigible  way 
he  had  of  saying  things  that  had  better  be  left  unsaid  — 
expressed  very  bluntly  his  pleasure  and  surprise  at  the 
way  in  which  we  found  our  English  cousins  engaged. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  have  no  doubt,"  said  Mitchell-Innis,  a 
rather  surly  looking  fellow,  certainly  the  least  sym- 
pathetic of  the  party;  "to  read  your  newspapers,  one 
might  suppose  that  English  officers  out  here  are  ex- 
clusively occupied  in  blowing  naked  niggers  to  pieces 
from  the  muzzles  of  their  cannon." 

For  a  moment  it  looked  like  a  row,  but  Kennedy 
smoothed  things  over  in  his  suave  way,  and  then  Jim 
broke  in,  saying :  — 

"  Well,  of  course  I  can't  answer  for  the  other  papers, 
you  know,  but  I  can  promise  you  fellows  a  column  in 
the  Logansport  Sentinel,  telling  what  you  are  doing  for 
the  niggers  out  your  way." 

Then  everybody  laughed  and  cheered,  and  Jim  vol- 
unteered to  lend  a  hand  to  clean  up  the  place,  but  I,  as 
his  superior  officer,  was  compelled  to  forbid  this.  It 
seemed  to  me  unfair  to  the  men  on  board  the  Sherman 
to  take  any  unnecessary  risks,  and  I  thought  it  more 
than  likely  that  we  would  have  plenty  of  cleaning  up  to 
do  on  our  own  account  once  we  reached  the  Philippines. 

L 


i46  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

I  could  not  get  over  my  surprise  at  the  way  these 
English  officers  were  making  themselves  at  home 
within  Portuguese  jurisdiction,  and  at  last  I  asked  Ken- 
nedy how  in  the  world  he  had  succeeded  in  getting 
permission  to  do  pretty  much  as  he  pleased. 

"  Oh,  well,  to  tell  you  the  truth  we  didn't ;  we  didn't 
even  dare  to  ask  for  it.  We  haven't  got  authority 
to  tear  down  and  burn  up  ;  we  have  only  permission  to 
use  the  hose."  Then  he  continued  in  a  confidential 
tone,  "  You'  see  we  did  not  want  to  embarrass  the  Por- 
tuguese government,  so  we  pitched  right  in  and  said 
nothing.  If  we  had,  you  see,  Dom  Christoforo  would 
have  fussed  about  for  a  week  or  two,  consulting  the 
Leal  Senado,  and  then  cabled  home  for  instructions, 
and  the  answer  might  just  as  well  have  been  no  as  yes, 
so  we  concluded  we  would  go  right  ahead  and  do  the 
trick,  and  we  rather  expect  to  be  through  and  washed 
up  and  back  home  again  before  the  Dons  catch  on  to 
what  we  have  been  about." 

"  Of  course  you  did,"  said  Burton  admiringly,  "  and 
that  was  the  only  way  to  do  it." 

Over  our  cigars  Mitchell-Innis  put  himself  out  to  be 
pleasant,  particularly  to  Jim ;  only  he  couldn't  be,  poor 
fellow,  because  he  was  born  with  a  disagreeable  and 
rather  patronizing  way  which  some  Englishmen  have, 
and  can't  change  any  more  than  they  can  the  color  of 
their  eyes. 

"  What  are  the  names  of  those  smart  little  gunboats 
of  yours  that  are  lying  off  Kowloon,"  he  inquired,  turn- 
ing to  Jim,  "tight  little  vessels,  smooth  as  paint,  and 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  147 

the  fellows  on  board,  not  very  smart,  you  know,  ac- 
cording to  our  ideas,  but  ready  for  any  serious  business, 
I  fancy  ?  " 

"  One  of  them  is  the  York  town,  the  other  the  Concord," 
answered  Jim.  "Yes,  we  think  they  are  rather  efficient 
vessels  of  their  class." 

"The  Yorktown!"  repeated  Mitchell-Innis.  "How 
odd !  named  after  our  old  cathedral  town  in  Yorkshire, 
I  suppose;  and  the  Concord!  Now  really,  don't  you 
think  that's  a  strange  name  for  a  gunboat  ?  " 

I  looked  at  Jim  and  trembled.  Could  he  resist  it  ?  I 
was  not  sure  I  could  have  done  so  myself,  and  Jim  is  my 
junior  by  ten  years,  and  such  a  hothead,  but  he  behaved 
like  the  gentleman  he  is. 

"  No,  the  Yorktown  is  named  after  a  little  town  of 
our  own  in  Virginia,  though  I  have  no  doubt  that  place 
takes  its  name  from  your  town  in  Yorkshire.  No,  no 
special  significance  at  all ;  simply  a  custom  we  have  of 
naming  our  gunboats  after  our  little  towns,  our  cruisers 
after  our  large  cities,  and  the  battleships  after  the  states, 
so  that  the  people  of  the  particular  localities  honored  may 
take  particular  interest  in  them  and  present  them  with 
silver  plate  and  punch  bowls,  and  so  it  was  that  Dewey 
had  with  him  the  Raleigh,  named  after  the  capital  of 
North  Carolina,  where  the  tar  comes  from,  and  the 
Boston,  that's  wtfere  they  bake  the  beans."  .  .  . 1 

1  As  most  readers  are  aware,  the  gunboat  Yorktown  is  named  after  York- 
town  in  Virginia,  where  Lord  Cornwallis  surrendered  to  the  continental 
army  and  our  French  allies.  The  Concord  is,  of  course,  named  after  the 
village  in  Massachusetts,  the  scene  of  one  of  the  opening  skirmishes  of  the 
Revolutionary  War.  —  THE  EDITOR. 


I48  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

And  Mitchell-Innis  drank  it  all  in,  and  said  it  was 
very  interesting,  in  the  bargain.  When  our  time  was 
up  Kennedy  walked  back  with  us,  carrying  us  through 
the  sickening  scenes  of  the  pest-ridden  slums,  with  his 
pleasant  chat,  and  when  we  reached  the  barricade  the 
Sikh  saluted  and  we  shook  hands  all  round. 

"I  don't  mind  saying,"  said  Kennedy,  "that  we  are 
all  well  pleased  to  see  you  fellows  out  in  the  East  again ; 
it  helps  us  and  it  helps  the  whole  jolly  world  along. 
What  you  have  seen  us  doing  here  this  morning  isn't 
pure  philanthropy,  don't  make  any  mistake  about  that ; 
it's  six  for  the  poor  beggars  and  half  a  dozen  for  our- 
selves ;  in  fact,  it's  police  work,  and  while  some  people 
may  give  it  another  name,  I  guess  that  is  what  our 
civilization  stands  for  out  here  and  in  all  the  other 
heathen  countries  beyond  the  law.  Mind  you,  I  don't 
for  a  moment  expect  that  we  will  ever  go  hand  in  glove 
together,  because  we  are  both  looking  out  for  No.  I, 
and  are  both  hard  at  driving  a  bargain,  but  the  Ameri- 
cans and  the  English  can  understand  each  other,  and  I 
take  it  that  we  are  the  only  people  out  here  that  can,  so 
I  am  glad  you  have  come.  Asia  for  the  Asiatics,  which 
is  the  new  cry  they  have  dinned  into  our  ears  so  much 
of  late,  not  only  means  ruin  for  us,  but  anarchy  for  the 
East  coast,  and  good-by  to  the  capitulations  and  the 
treaty  ports.  When  a  fellow  takes  the  time  to  think 
how  you  Americans,  though  you  were  hardly  out  of  your 
swaddling  clothes  at  the  time,  showed  us  the  way  out 
to  the  east  coast  of  Asia,  though  you  had  to  sail  all  around 
the  world  to  get  there,  and  remembers  how  you  were 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  149 

the  first  to  open  up  China,  and  Japan,  and  Corea,  and 
Burmah,  and  Siam,  too,  for  that  matter,  to  Western  com- 
merce and  civilization,  the  only  wonder  is  you  stayed 
away  so  long  ;  you  must  have  been  busy  at  home.  Now 
don't  forget  to  ask  your  consul,  when  you  get  there,  to 
tell  you  how  your  boats  beat  ours  in  the  race  for  Canton ; 
it's  a  good  story,  though  I  wish  it  had  ended  the  other 

way.     It's  all  down  in  the  archives,  and  old  Mr.  S 

can  tell  it  to  you.  You  bet  he  knows  it  by  heart  if  the 
office  should  be  closed." 

Burton,  very  good-naturedly,  now  led  the  way  to  the 
cemetery  of  the  East  India  Company,  though  it  was 
still  evident  that  he  would  have  preferred  to  go  sniping. 
Though  no  longer  in  use,  the  cemetery  is  maintained 
in  excellent  condition.  It  was  started,  a  great  many 
years  ago,  by  the  East  India  Company,  and  in  its 
quiet  precincts  are  sleeping  some  of  that  great  corpo- 
ration's most  distinguished  servants;  for,  in  the  olden 
days,  no  matter  how  different  things  may  be  now, 
Macoa  was  not  only  the  sanitarium  of  the  East,  but, 
to  some  extent,  of  British  India,  as  well.  When  the 
Company,  having  outlived  its  usefulness,  was  dissolved 
by  act  of  parliament,  a  sum  of  money  was  placed  in 
the  hands  of  a  committee  of  English  merchants,  and 
this  has  proved  sufficient  to  keep  the  venerable  land- 
mark in  a  good  state  of  preservation.  Wind  and 
weather,  however,  have  had  a  very  destructive  influence 
upon  the  soft  stone  of  the  tombstones,  and  a  very  great 
number  of  the  inscriptions  are  quite  obliterated.  How- 
ever, as  we  walked  at  random  in  this  tranquil  resting- 


ISO  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

place  of  the  pioneers  of  our  civilization  in  the  Far  East, 
we  came  upon  not  a  few  graves  which  should  be 
of  peculiar  interest  to  Americans.  The  following  are 
some  of  the  names  which  Jim  deciphered,  and  wrote 
down,  with  a  view  to  their  ultimate  publication  in  the 
Logansport  Sentinel.  As  he  is  not  at  all  sure,  how- 
ever, that  such  items  of  antiquarian  interest  will  prove 
newsy  enough  for  that  red-hot,  up-to-date  publication, 
he  is  good  enough  to  let  me  send  them  on  to  you. 

JOHN   F.   BROOKE 
FLEET  SURGEON,  U.  S.  N.,  1849 

THOMAS   W.   WALDRON 
U.  S.  CONSUL,  HONG  KONG,  1843 

CHARLES   WOODBERRY 
ERECTED  BY  HIS  FRIENDS,  J.  B.  &  W.  ENDICOTT,  1854 

ARCHIBALD   S.   CAMPBELL 
COMMANDER  OF  THE  U.  S.  S.  Enterprise,  MACOA,  1856 

EDMUND   ROBERTS,   ESQ. 

SPECIAL  DIPLOMATIC  AGENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  TO 

SEVERAL  ASIATIC  COUNTRIES,  WHO  DIED  IN  MACOA 

JUNE  I2TH,  1836 

He  devised  and  executed  to  their  end,  under  instructions  from 
his  Government,  Treaties  of  Amity  and  Commerce  between  the 
United  States  and  the  Courts  of  Muscat  and  of  Siam.1 

1  Edmund  Roberts  of  New  Hampshire  was  appointed  diplomatic  agent 
of  the  United  States  to  the  countries  of  the  Far  East  by  Jackson.  He 
sailed  upon  his  mission  on  board  the  sloop-of-war  Peacock;  after  meeting 
with  success  in  Siam  he  failed  to  negotiate  a  treaty  with  the  king  of 
Cambodia,  and  died  in  Macoa  when  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Japan. 
—THE  EDITOR. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  151 

FRANCIS   W.   BACON 
BARNSTABLE,  MASS.    AGED  25.     (No  DATE) 

GEORGE  W.    BIDDLE 

OF  PHILADELPHIA 
WHO  DIED  IN  MACOA  i6xH  DAY  OF  AUGUST,  1811 

SACRED  TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF 

ROBERT   MORISON,  D.D. 

FIRST  PROTESTANT  MISSIONARY  TO  CHINA 

THE  COMPILER  OF  A  DICTIONARY  OF  THE  CHINESE  LANGUAGE 

AND  THE  CHINESE  VERSION  OF  THE  HOLY  SCRIPTURES, 

WHICH  HE  LIVED  TO  SEE  COMPLETED 

DIED  IN  CANTON,  I8341 

HENRY   STURGIS 

OF 

BOSTON,  MASS.,  U.  S.  A. 
DIED  1819,  AGED  29  YEARS 

When  we  had  finished  copying  these  names,  the  inde- 
fatigable Burton  again  suggested  violent  exercise  in  the 
form  of  lawn  tennis.  This  time  we  had  not  the  heart 
to  refuse  him,  so  we  started  out  by  the  sea  road  to  the 
tennis  ground,  disturbing  as  we  went  some  Parsee  sun 
worshippers  paying  their  devotions  to  the  setting  sun, 
on  the  rocks  by  the  sea.  We  soon  had  a  fine  flow  of 
perspiration,  which,  as  we  had  already  learned,  is  a  mat- 
ter of  vital  importance  to  the  preservation  of  good  health 
out  here.  Burton  played  a  rattling  good  game  of  tennis, 
and  so  did  Jim ;  a  fourth  man  was  found  for  me,  and 

1  Dr.  Morison  was,  I  believe,  an  Englishman  by  birth.  He,  however, 
came  out  to  China  under  American  auspices  and  carried  his  great  work  to 
a  successful  conclusion  through  the  generous  assistance  of  American 
merchants.  —  THE  EDITOR. 


152  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

in  a  few  minutes  we  were  all  feeling  the  better  for  hav- 
ing pumped  the  foul  air  of  the  plague  quarter  out  of  our 
lungs.  Suddenly,  as  I  ran  back  after  a  ball  which  had 
been  knocked  out,  I  slipped  and  came  down  rather 
heavily  on  a  large  stone  slab  which  I  had  not  noticed, 
so  overgrown  was  it  with  grass. 

"  Sorry,  old  man,"  said  Burton,  as  he  ran  to  give  me 
a  helping  hand,  "  sorry  I  forgot  to  warn  you  of  those 
confounded  slabs ;  they  are  all  that  are  left  of  the  tomb- 
stones of  the  old  Dutch  graveyard.  The  Dutch  were  in 
Macoa,  you  know,  a  long  time  before  the  Dons,  and  they 
had  some  smart  fighting,  both  on  land  and  at  sea,  for 
the  final  possession  of  the  place." 

On  the  moment  the  antiquarian  spirit  was  rekindled 
in  us,  and  Jim  and  I,  to  the  no  small  disgust  of  Burton, 
knocked  off  tennis  and  resumed  our  investigations,  but, 
for  a  long  time,  without  any  compensation  in  the  way  of 
discoveries.  The  inscriptions  had  been  almost  obliter- 
ated by  the  wind  and  the  weather  and  the  innumerable 
tennis  shoes  which  had  passed  over  the  surface  of  the 
old  stone  slabs,  and,  in  places,  worn  them  as  smooth  as 
polished  marbles,  and  those  we  did  make  out  proved  to 
be  in  Dutch  or  Latin,  and  so  they  were  Greek  to  us.  It 
grew  steadily  darker,  and  we  were  about  to  give  up,  when, 
by  the  light  of  my  last  match,  I  caught  sight  of  the 
magical  letters  U.  S.  A.,  and  reading  backward  I  learned 
that  the  stone  I  was  standing  upon  marked  the  last  rest- 
ing place  of  "  Daniel  Reid  of  Philadelphia,  who  died 
in  Macoa,  1797."  Truly  this  man  was  indeed  one  of 
the  pioneers  of  America  in  the  East. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  153 

In  the  evening  we  dined  with  Burton  and  had  a  most 
interesting  chat  with  him  concerning  past  and  present 
conditions  in  the  far  East.  He  is  what  they  call  out 
here  an  "  Old  China  hand,"  and  knows  the  whole  thing 
from  A  to  Z.  There  was  one  statement  he  made  that  I 
found  most  surprising. 

"  I  can't  help  laughing  up  my  sleeve,"  he  said,  "  when 
I  read  in  your  papers  the  arguments  which  some  of  your 
people  at  home  employ  to  oppose  the  natural  and  inevi- 
table course  of  events  which  is  bringing  America  back 
here  to  resume  her  former  and  natural  position  as  one 
of,  if  not  the  greatest  power  on  the  Pacific.  I  see  they 
even  draw  George  Washington  into  question,  and  ask 
what  he  would  think  of  such  a  career  of  criminal  ag- 
gression as  they  assert  President  McKinley  has  entered 
upon,  and  they  quote  in  favor  of  their  view,  that  Amer- 
icans should  let  slip  all  the  opportunities  of  trade  and 
commerce  that  the  Pacific  and  the  countries  across  that 
ocean  present,  a  set  of  opinions  taken  from  his  Farewell 
Address,  which  can,  of  course,  have  no  bearing  whatso- 
ever on  the  present  situation.  But  '  Old  China  hands ' 
out  here  know  a  thing  or  two  which  seem  to  have  quite 
escaped  the  attention  of  your  publicists  at  home ;  and 
one  of  these  is,  that  it  was  not  Seward  or  Jackson  or 
even  Jefferson  or  Morris  who  first  saw  the  opportunities 
and  advantages  in  the  Pacific  that  are  assured  to  the 
United  States  by  reason  of  her  geographical  position, 
but  the  immortal  George  himself,  and  furthermore  that 
he  was  in  favor  of  expansion  (if  you  want  to  call  natural 
growth  by  that  name)  when  the  States  only  had  4,000,000 


154  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

inhabitants,  and  your  western  frontier  was  the  valley  of 
the  Ohio.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  Washington's  admin- 
istration, indeed,  was  the  sending  out  of  a  commissioner 
to  the  Empire  of  China  to  look  after  your  trade  interests 
in  Asiatic  waters  and  to  protect  your  merchants.  '  For 
this  mission  Washington  selected  —  it  is  all  set  forth  in  a 
manuscript  copy  of  the  history  of  Macoa  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Jardines,  which  I  have  seen  —  a  soldier,  one  of 
the  first  president's  old  comrades  in  arms,  Major  Gray  of 
the  First  United  States  Artillery.  Gray  was  the  first 
ambassador  from  a  Western  power,  to  come  out  here  for 
many  a  long  year;  in  fact,  I  believe  there  had  been  no  one 
of  note  since  the  days  of  Marco  Polo  and  the  Venetians. 
This  little  history  says  that  Gray  was  a  proud  man,  and 
almost  too  stiff-necked  for  diplomacy  as  it  was  under- 
stood in  those  days,  and  it  is  certain  that  he  refused  to 
perform  the  kotow  before  either  viceroy  or  emperor." 

Of  course  I  know  nothing  about  Washington's  policy 
in  regard  to  the  Pacific  and  Asia,  and  perhaps  care  less, 
though  I  found  Burton's  bit  of  forgotten  history  very 
interesting.  I  mean  by  this  no  disrespect  to  Washing- 
ton, but  I  am  persuaded  that  each  generation  of  men 
must  settle  their  own  affairs,  and  not  be  entirely  guided 
by  the  precedents  set  forth  by  the  Medes  and  Persians, 
or  the  signers,  or  by  any  set  of  rules  laid  down  by  men 
who  were  dead  long  before  the  conditions  arose  which 
have  to  be  dealt  with.  .  .  . 

But  shall  I  tell  you  what  it  was  that  impressed  me 
most  of  all  that  we  saw  in  Macoa  ?  Well,  it  was  the 
graves  of  those  Americans  who  are  sleeping  there. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  155 

As  I  walked  in  that  graveyard  it  dawned  upon  me 
for  the  first  time  that  we  are  not  venturing  upon  a 
new  departure,  and  suddenly  all  the  strangeness  of  the 
trail  we  were  following  fell  away,  for  here  was  the  best 
of  evidence  that  we  are  only  marching  on  where  our 
fathers  lead  the  way.  And  later  on,  after  dinner,  as 
we  sat  out  on  the  veranda  and  smoked,  it  was  interest- 
ing and  profitable  in  a  sense,  too,  to  hear  Burton,  who 
had  the  whole  thing  at  his  fingers'  ends,  tell  of  the  days 
when  Americans  ruled  the  markets  of  the  East  in  all 
honest  enterprise,  and  when  the  whole  or  nearly  the 
whole  volume  of  Eastern  trade  was  carried  under  the 
American  flag  and  in  Yankee  clipper  ships.  In  those 
days  throughout  the  East  the  word  of  an  American 
merchant  of  the  stamp  of  the  Griswolds,  the  Olyphants, 
the  Talbots,  the  H cards,  the  Manila  Lawrences,  the 
Russells,  and  the  Forbes  was  as  good  and  better  than 
a  Bank  of  England  note.  It  will  never  be  known, 
I  suppose,  what  our  great  civil  war  cost  us  in  indirect 
losses.  One  of  the  greatest,  certainly,  and  one  which 
we  seem  to  have  made  the  least  effort  to  regain,  was 
our  Eastern  trade.  .  .  . 

The  next  morning,  early,  the  bells  of  the  cathedral 
awakened  the  slumbering  city  with  a  bright  and  joyous 
carillon.  They  seemed  to  say,  "  The  king  is  dead ;  long 
live^Ehe  king  who  is  to  enter  upon  his  reign  to-day!" 
We  hastily  scrambled  up  the  hill,  as  we  were  deter- 
mined to  see  at  least  the  religious  part  of  the  ceremony 
with  which  Dom  Christoforo  turned  over  his  authority 
and  the  vara,  or  staff  of  office,  to  his  successor,  Dom 


156  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Diosdado,  or  "God-given,"  something,  who  had  recently 
arrived  out.  Even  Jim  could  not  secure  the  new  govern- 
or's name  for  the  Sentinel,  so  I  blush  to  say  he  "faked" 
it  in  cold  blood. 

As  we  drew  near  to  the  cathedral,  we  found  the 
streets  which  had  hitherto  always  been  so  deserted 
and  bare,  quite  respectably  filled  with  people.  Frock- 
coated,  high-hatted,  grave  old  gentlemen  they  were,  for 
the  most  part,  and  flocks  of  women  looking  like  black- 
birds, as  they  hopped  along,  swathed  in  their  holy  week 
mantles.  We  approached  the.  cathedral  through  files 
of  the  most  wretched  looking  soldiers ;  they  were  all 
either  half-breeds  or  quadroons  or  mongrels,  and  even 
the  Mozambique  niggers,  who  furnished  by  far  the  larg- 
est quota,  could  not  show  a  pure-blooded  black  among 
their  number.  After  we  had  passed  the  guards,  thanks 
to  the  outlay  of  a  few  coppers,  we  got  along  very  well 
indeed,  certainly  we  were  not  crowded ;  indeed,  I  should 
say  that  the  whole  population  of  Macoa  of  all  colors 
could  be  comfortably  stowed  away  in  the  spacious  nave 
of  this  great  cathedral  fortress.  Both  the  outgoing  and 
the  incoming  governors  shone  with  gold  lace  and  were 
dazzling  to  look  upon,  because  of  the  innumerable 
medals  by  which  their  breasts  were  .covered  as  with 
chain  armor.  The  governors  looked  as  much  alike  as 
peas  in  a  pod,  and  though  it  was  certainly  none  of  my 
business  or  concern  what  happened  to  this  loyal  though 
plague-ridden  and  impoverished  colony,  I  began  to  grow 
apprehensive  that  Dom  Christoforo,  who  certainly  had 
the  advantage  in  the  matter  of  local  knowledge,  would 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  157 

come  out  strong  and  take  the  oath  of  office  and  send 
his  "  God-given  "  successor  back  to  Portugal  again  ;  for, 
while  the  new  man's  face  did  not  bear  out  in  a  single 
lineament  the  promise  of  his  name,  I  did  not  think  it 
possible  that  he  could  do  worse  than  Dom  Christoforo. 
High  up  above  us  in  the  dim  twilight  of  the  cathedral, 
in  lonely  state,  the  bishop  sat  upon  his  purple  chair. 
The  outgoing  and  the  incoming  representatives  of  the 
crown  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  episcopal  throne.  Now 
and  again  they  would  kneel  in  prayer,  as  men  who  were 
seeking  on  high  support  and  guidance  for  the  perform- 
ance of  the  duties  they  were  respectively  entering  upon. 
Now  and  again  in  their  persons  the  State  made  obei- 
sance before  the  Church  in  the  person  of  the  bishop. 
In  his  right  hand  Dom  Christoforo  grasped  tightly,  as 
though  he  hated  to  lose  it  a  moment  before  he  had  to, 
the  vara  of  his  office.  It  was  a  long  black  staff  en- 
circled with  gold  cords  and  studded  with  brilliant,  and 
perhaps  precious,  stones.  The  long,  low  chant  of  the 
choristers  died  away  at  last,  and  Dom  Christoforo's 
secretary  advanced  from  behind  the  phalanx  of  the  Leal 
Senado,  whose  sombre  black-coated  figures  intervened 
like  a  dark  curtain  between  us  and  the  brilliant  scene 
on  the  altar  steps.  He  bowed  to  the  ground  as  he  pre- 
sented his  chief  with  a  purple  wallet,  from  which  the 
latter  now  drew  out  his  letter  of  recall.  Leaning  heavily 
upon  his  staff  of  office,  that  he  was  so  soon  to  give  up, 
Dom  Christoforo  began  to  read.  When  this  was  over, 
he  advanced  up  the  altar  steps  and  hung  the  vara  upon 
a  silver  peg,  apparently  put  there  for  this  purpose,  and 


158  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

then  withdrew,  no  longer  viceroy  over  all  the  "Por- 
tingals." 

There  was  another  long  interval,  during  which  the 
dismal  chant  of  the  choristers  rolled  through  the  echo- 
ing aisles ;  then  another  secretary  stepped  forward  and 
presented  to  the  new  governor  his  letters  of  credence, 
also  enveloped  in  a  purple  roll.  When  he  had  finished 
reading  the  writing  of  the  king,  which  proclaimed  him 
viceroy,  the  new  governor  knelt  in  prayer  for  a  few 
moments,  then  rising,  walked  boldly  up  to  the  altar, 
and  taking  down  the  staff  of  office  returned  to  his 
former  position  amid  the  bows  and  the  genuflections  of 
all  present  excepting  the  bishop,  who,  being  in  quite  a 
different  class,  held  himself  coldly  aloof.  Upon  the 
moment  the  new  governor  seemed  to  have  grown  six 
inches,  at  least.  All  the  notables  now  thronged  about 
him  and  hailed  him  as  the  viceroy  of  Ethiopia  and  of 
India,  of  the  Islands  of  the  Sea  and  of  the  Spices, — 
an  empire  which,  of  course,  no  one  there  would  admit 
has  fallen  away  until  only  Macoa  remains  with  its 
opium  dens  and  fan-tan  hells. 

When  the  music  died  away  Dom  Christoforo  an- 
nounced in  a  sonorous  voice,  that  it  was  with  the  great- 
est pleasure  he  turned  over  into  the  hand  of  so  worthy 
a  successor  the  government  of  the  Portuguese  Empire 
in  the  East,  at  a  time  when  everything  was  so  pros- 
perous, the  people  happy  and  industrious,  and  at  peace 
with  all  the  world.  To  this  happy  result  he  contended 
he  had  not  contributed  much,  but  he  was  proud  of  the 
little  he  had  been  able  to  do. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  159 

The  new  governor  responded  very  handsomely  in  the 
same  strain.  It  was  no  secret,  he  stated,  that  his  royal 
master  deeply  regretted  the  loss  of  such  a  faithful  ser- 
vant as  Dom  Christoforo  had  proved  himself  to  be. 
His  had  been  an  onerous  task,  and  the  admiration  and 
the  sympathy  which  the  whole  civilized  world  awarded 
him  as  but  his  due,  showed  how  well  he  had  performed 
it.  As  he  sailed  away,  doubtless  to  receive  the  high 
honors  which  were  awaiting  him  at  home,  he  could  rest 
assured  that  the  best  efforts  of  his  successor  would 
be  directed  toward  following  in  his  footsteps,  and  to 
maintaining  the  high  standard  of  prosperity  and  happi- 
ness which  his  never-to-be-forgotten  predecessor  had 
achieved. 

The  faces  of  some  at  least  of  those  present  fell  at  this 
announcement,  certainly  not  a  very  encouraging  one 
for  the  Macoistas.  Even  Burton  looked  chapfallen, 
as  he  whispered,  "  There  is  a  deal  on  between  those  old 
scamps.  I  wonder  what  it  is." 

But  most  amusing  of  all  was  the  expression  of  blank 
amazement  on  Jim's  face,  which  we  now  for  the  first 
time  caught  sight  of,  as,  cutting  the  rest  of  the  ceremony, 
we  crept  out  of  the  cathedral  to  have  a  smoke. 

"  But  the  plague ! "  he  shouted,  when  he  found  his 
voice.  "  Not  a  blessed  word  about  the  plague,  or  those 
poor  fellows  who  are  dying  by  the  hundreds  in  the 
deserted  barracoons  like  rats  in  their  holes  ? " 

Burton  burst  out  with  a  laugh. 

"  It  is  plain  to  see  that  our  friend  here  is  a  soldier  not 
versed  in  the  devious  ways  of  diplomacy,  of  even  the 


160  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

simplest  forms  of  diplomacy,  much  less  that  of  latter- 
day  Portugal.  No,  the  plague  is  not  an  admitted  fact, 
—  everything  is  prosperous  in  Macoa,  and  will  remain 
so  until  the  last  house  falls  in  ruins  upon  the  head  of 
the  last  inhabitant." 

Jim  soon  consoled  himself  with  the  thought  that  in 
this  out-of-the-way  place  he  had  stumbled  upon  a  splen- 
did pageant  worthy  to  be  described  in  the  Sentinel  in 
his  most  florid  style. 

Several  hours  later,  as  we  hurried  down  the  street  of 
Bom  Jesu,  we  came  across  a  noisy,  drunken  crowd  of 
Chinamen.  They  were  beating  tom-toms,  burning 
prayer-papers,  and  setting  off  noisy  petards,  all  of 
which  amusements  go  to  make  up  what  Burton  called 
the  celebration  of  the  Blue  Dragon  Festival.  As  the 
rascals  were  all  filled  with  samshoo,  and  spoiling  for  a 
fight,  we  drew  back  into  a  doorway  to  let  them  go 
by.  As  we  waited,  there  came  up  a  narrow,  winding 
side  street,  to  the  Bom  Jesu,  the  funeral  cortege  of 
a  Portuguese  Christian.  In  the  first  line  walked  a 
priest,  mumbling  incoherent  prayers,  as  though  he 
thought  to  exorcise  the  evil  spirits  and  the  heathen 
gods  which  grinned  down  upon  him  from  the  street 
shrines  and  the  little  altar  niches  overhead,  from  where, 
only  a  few  years  ago,  the  faces  of  our  familiar  saints 
had  smiled  benignly  upon  all  who  passed  this  way. 
Before  and  behind  the  priest  walked  a  score  of  acolytes 
sprinkling  incense  and  holy  water  over  the  heaps  of 
refuse  that  filled  the  streets.  A  black  velvet  pall  was 
thrown  over  the  bier  that  followed,  and  upon  this 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  161 

rested  a  massive  silver  cross.  The  coffin  itself  was 
carried  by  coolies,  but  the  cords  of  the  pall  were  held 
in  the  trembling  ringers  of  four  old  gentlemen,  in  one 
of  whom  I  recognized  my  street  acquaintance  of  the 
previous  day,  the  last  of  the  line  of  Magellan.  They 
were  all  very  feeble,  and  stumbled  and  came  to  a  halt 
more  than  once,  as  they  toiled  up  the  winding  street 
and  the  steep  ascent  toward  the  parish  church,  where 
the  tolling  of  the  bells  announced  that  the  last  sad  rites 
were  soon  to  be  celebrated.  As  ill  luck  would  have 
it,  the  two  processions  met  in  the  Bom  Jesu,  and  the 
Chinese  defiantly  took  the  right  of  way.  Once  they 
had  secured  it,  they  came  to  a  standstill,  and  set  off 
their  petards  and  kept  up  their  hideous  tom-tomming  for 
half  an  hour  at  least,  while  the  little  group  of  Christians 
drew  back  and  waited  their  turn  in  the  shadows  of  the 
narrow  street.  When  the  Chinese  at  last  went  on,  the 
funeral  procession  resumed  its  interrupted  way  and  pro- 
ceeded up  the  hill.  It  was  only  as  the  coffin  was  lost 
to  view,  and  the  funeral  party  swallowed  up  entirely  in 
the  darkness  that  reigned  within  the  church,  that  we 
turned  and  continued  our  way  to  the  docks.  And  it 
seemed  to  me  that  we  had  not  merely  witnessed  the 
burial  of  a  man,  but  the  end  of  an  empire,  and  that  it 
was  right  and  fitting  that  a  son  of  Magellan  should  help 
to  carry  the  pall.  .  .  . 

It  was  nearly  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  our 
noisy  side-wheeler  passed  the  wonderful  Tiger  Jaw 
Headland  which  guards  the  entrance  to  the  narrower 
reaches  of  the  river,  and  it  was  well  on  toward  mid- 

M 


162  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

night  when  we  began  to  pick  our  way  through  the 
fleet  of  native  junks  lying  off  Whampoa.  Then  for 
sorne  minutes  we  steamed  slowly  on  through  the  great 
floating  suburb  of  Canton,  where  several  hundred  thou- 
sand people  live  upon  "shoe"  and  "slipper"  boats,  and 
living  or  dead  never  burden  the  dry  land,  which  is  far 
too  crowded  for  their  accommodation,  for  here  in  Canton 
only  the  strong,  the  victors  in  the  battle  of  life,  dare 
to  set  foot  upon  the  shore.  It  seems  to  have  been  a 
universal  conception  of  the  human  race,  received  and 
cherished  in  all  its  branches  and  under  every  dispen- 
sation, that  each  human  being  in  the  image  of  God 
created,  is  entitled  by  right  of  birth  to  at  least  six  feet 
in  the  ample  bosom  of  our  mother  earth,  there  to  take 
his  rest  when  the  fever  of  life  is  over.  But  in  Can- 
ton and  in  many  other  parts  of  China,  this  claim  is 
not  allowed,  and  to-day  there  are  hundreds  upon 
thousands  of  people  crowded  off  the  shore,  who,  liv- 
ing or  dead,  float  about  upon  these  waters  which  pay 
tithes  and  taxes  to  no  man.  .  .  . 

As  we  steamed  softly  along,  there  were  lit  suddenly 
before  us  countless  lights.  It  seemed  as  though  our 
horizon  swarmed  with  myriads  of  fireflies ;  and  so  it 
was,  in  the  flare  of  its  innumerable  lanterns,  that  the 
city  of  Canton  came  out  of  the  darkness  to  meet  us. 
We  anchored  off  the  little  island  of  Shameen,  on  which 
the  foreign  hongs,  and  the  small  European  and  Amer- 
ican population  is  confined  by  imperial  decree.  Even 
by  the  moonlight  we  could  see  that  it  was  a  clean 
place,  and  so  contrasted  pleasantly  with  the  Augean 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  163 

stables  of  Canton,  by  which,  with  but  the  protecting 
strip  of  water,  it  is  surrounded  on  every  side. 

On  our  right  rose  to  a  commanding  height,  glisten- 
ing like  the  bright  facets  of  a  diamond  in  the  moon- 
light, the  white  stone  spire  of  the  Catholic  cathedral, 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  substantial  outposts  of 
the  Church  militant  in  China.  The  graceful  beauty 
of  this  shrine  must,  even  in  the  sight  of  the  Chinese 
themselves,  make  their  own  places  of  worship,  the 
hideous  temples  of  their  painted  idols,  appear  more 
loathsome  even  than  they  are  in  reality.  Certain  it 
is  that  they  all  hold  it  in  abomination.  Long  since, 
were  the  cathedral  not  watched  over  night  and  day  by 
the  vigilant  priests,  who  never  close  an  eye,  the  beauti- 
ful edifice  would  have  been  blown  into  the  water, 
and  as  we  came  by  we  saw  the  belated  boatmen,  as 
they  passed,  stop  for  a  moment,  to  shake  their  impotent 
fists  at  the  symbol  of  our  faith,  with  which  the  white 
stone  spire  is  surmounted,  and  to  spit  upon  the  shadow 
which  it  cast  on  the  mirror-like  surface  of  the  river. 

We  landed  near  the  drawbridge  where  the  Manchu 
soldiers  stand  guard  to  protect  the  foreign  concessidh 
from  the  anti-christian  rioters  who  are  never  quiet  in 
Canton  proper.  Soon  we  found  the  clean  little  hotel, 
and  were  in  a  few  minutes  sound  asleep,  blissfully 
unconscious  of  the  fact  that  the  plagues,  both  black 
and  yellow,  were  at  their  destructive  work  all  about 
us,  and  that  we  were  in  the  midst  of  several  millions  of 
people,  who,  if  you  can  believe  their  words,  were  thirst- 
ing for  our  blood.  .  .  . 


164  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

This  is,  of  course,  my  dear  Larry,  not  a  study  of 
Canton,  much  less  of  China,  for  we  only  spent  thirty- 
six  hours  in  the  place,  and  on  the  second  day  of  our 
visit  we  did  not  leave  Shameen.  It  is  merely  a  synop- 
sis of  some  of  the  things  we  saw  which  it  is  possible 
to  write  about,  and  while  our  survey  was  confessedly 
superficial,  yet  it  is  what  can  be  seen  every  day  in  that 
city  of  China  which,  owing  to  its  geographical  position, 
has  been  longest  in  direct  communication  with  Europe, 
and  so  more  directly  subjected  to  the  leaven  of  that 
peaceful  and  intellectual  propaganda  of  our  faith  and 
our  civilization,  from  which  such  a  number  of  benevo- 
lent nihilists  in  various  parts  of  the  world  would  seem, 
in  defiance  of  the  lessons  of  experience,  to  still  await 
miraculous  results. 

Early  the  next  morning,  starting  from  the  drawbridge, 
we  entered  the  labyrinth  of  the  city,  with  a  Hong  Kong 
Chinaman  as  our  guide.  His  intelligence  and  fidelity 
had  been  vouched  for  by  our  consul  in  glowing  terms, 
and  it  was  well  we  had  such  a  pathfinder  to  depend 
upon,  for  within  five  minutes  we  had  completely  lost 
our  bearings,  and  could  not  have  found  our  way  out 
alone  short  of  a  week,  if  then.  The  streets  are  only 
from  four  to  five  feet  broad,  and  upon  either  side  the 
houses  rise  to  the  height  of  three  or  four  stories.  Be- 
tween are  stretched  awnings  and  mats  which  keep  out 
the  sun  as  well  as  the  light  and  air,  so  that  even  at 
midday  the  Cantonese  must  grope  their  way  along. 
The  first  street  we  entered  was  lined  with  tenement 
houses,  several  of  which  we  visited.  It  was  still  early, 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  165 

just  about  sunrise,  as  it  had  been  our  purpose  to  con- 
clude all  sight-seeing  before  the  heat  of  the  day,  so  we 
surprised  many  of  the  tenement  dwellers  as  they  came 
crawling  out  of  their  sleeping  places.  Now,  of  course 
I  do  not  expect  you  to  believe  what  we  saw  in  these 
tenements;  I  simply  tell  you  because  it  relieves  my 
mind  to  do  so.  I  would  not  have  believed  myself, 
except  for  the  testimony  of  my  own  eyes.  Inside,  the 
tenements  are  divided  into  low,  dingy  compartments 
about  twenty  feet  square,  but  not  more  than  four  feet 
from  floor  to  ceiling.  In  the  walls  of  the  compartments 
open  innumerable  little  doors,  about  the  size  and  looking 
for  all  the  world  like  the  lockers  in  the  dressing-room  of 
a  gymnasium.  As  we  entered  the  compartment  quite 
a  number  of  the  coolies  were  crawling  out  of  these 
receptacles  (much  narrower  they  were  than  the  aver- 
age coffin),  where  they  had  spent  the  night.  In  this 
one  apartment,  or  sardine  box,  there  must  have  been 
at  least  a  hundred  men  packed  away,  and  in  each 
tenement  house  so  occupied,  I  should  say,  from  two  to 
three  thousand  people.  The  stench  that  prevailed  was 
something  overpowering ;  a  handkerchief  could  not 
begin  to  mitigate  the  fumes,  much  less  stop  them,  so 
we  ran  away,  with,  I  am  afraid,  our  investigation  still 
very  incomplete. 

Our  second  "sight"  was  an  object  lesson  in  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  sharp  and  merciless  strug- 
gle for  existence  which  prevails  in  Canton,  and,  indeed, 
throughout  China,  and  it  was,  I  can  tell  you,  anything 
but  reassuring.  Mr.  Pearson  and  other  sociologists 


1 66  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

have  written  essays  without  number  in  regard  to  the 
"yellow  peril,"  by  which  they  mean  the  danger,  to 
which  the  white  races  of  the  world  are  exposed,  of 
being  over-run  some  day  by  the  infinitely  superior 
number  of  the  yellow  race,  particularly  by  the  Chinese. 
From  the  little  I  have  seen  of  the  East  I  feel  confident 
that  if  danger  there  was,  it  has  long  since  passed. 
Numbers  do  not  count  for  much  in  modern  battles ;  it 
is  the  courage  and  the  disciplined  intelligence  of  the 
man  behind  the  gun  that  gives  the  victory  to  one  side 
or  the  other ;  and  even  in  the  matter  of  numbers  it 
should  be  noticed  that  the  Anglo-American  race  is 
fast  overhauling  the  Chinese.  But  it  was  an  appre- 
hension of  quite  a  different  danger  that  chilled  me  to 
the  bone  as  I  saw  these  crowded  workshops,  and  the 
skilled  laborers  of  Canton,  as  innumerable  as  the  sands 
of  the  seashore.  The  Chinese  can  never  out-fight  us,  but 
there  is  certainly  danger  that  they  may  "under-live  "  us. 
In  a  word,  I  mean  that  they  can  do  practically  the 
same  work  that  we  do  and  at  about  one-twentieth 
the  cost.  This  evening  I  heard  a  sea  captain  make  the 
same  economic  comparison,  and  the  way  in  which  he 
put  the  matter  was  so  forcible  that  I  cannot  do  better 
than  reproduce  it  here. 

"We  will  suppose,"  he  said,  "that  the  Chinese  and 
we  Westerners  are  Competing  for  ocean  freights,  and 
we  will  suppose  that  we  carry  about  the  same  amount 
of  stuff  and  at  about  the  same  rate  of  speed.  At  the 
end  of  the  voyage,  however,  your  Western  freighter 
will  have  burned  five  hundred  tons  of  coal,  while  John 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  167 

Chinaman  has  only  burned  fifty  and  saved  a  lot  of 
dust.  This  being  the  case,  can  it  be  long  before  he 
will  monopolize  the  carrying-trade  ?  " 

I  am  afraid  not.  There  seems  to  me  to  be  in  the 
skipper's  inquiry  much  for  our  social  economists  to 
ponder  over,  and  the  kernel  of  a  problem  that  comes 
home  to  all  of  us. 

These  workshops  of  the  different  guilds  of  skilled 
workmen  in  Canton  are  bunched  together  in  wards  or 
districts,  very  much  as  they  must  have  been  in  old  Lon- 
don, as  the  names  of  the  streets  in  the  City  indicate. 
As  I  write  I  remember  that  you  described  having  seen 
much  the  same  thing  in  Damascus,  so  this  is  probably  a 
primitive  and  universal  custom,  which,  when  the  discord 
came,  the  scattered  tribes  took  away  with  them  from  the 
Tower  of  Babel.  We  wandered  first  through  the  ward 
of  the  butchers'  guild,  with  "  chow  "  dogs  hanging  from 
hooks  suspended  over  the  streets.  Their  wool  had  been 
plucked  very  carefully,  but  here  and  there  a  patch  is  left 
to  show  the  color  of  the  dog's  coat  in  life,  a  detail  con- 
sidered by  these  strange  dog-fanciers  as  having  a  very 
considerable  effect  upon  the  delicacy  of  the  "chow." 
We  passed  on  in  quick  succession  through  the  wards  of 
the  fishmongers,  the  metal  workers,  the  mat  weavers 
and  the  spinners  of  wool.  The  craftsmen  are  all  stowed 
away  in  compartments  of  about  the  same  size  and  con- 
dition of  those  I  have  described  in  the  tenements.  They 
open,  however,  out  on  the  street,  and  so  the  atmosphere 
is  more  tolerable.  While  they  work,  seated  on  a  plat- 
form or  in  a  swinging  chair  suspended  from  the  ceil- 


i68  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

ing,  sits  a  sharp-eyed  foreman,  watching  over  them. 
He  is  generally  armed  with  a  long,  sharp-pointed  stick, 
with  which  he  prods  the  naked  bodies  of  any  under  him 
who  dare  to  lift  their  eyes  from  the  work  in  hand,  and 
here  for  sixteen  and  eighteen  hours  a  day  these  people 
labor  without  rest  or  interruption.  Everything  they  turn 
out  is  excellent,  and  even  with  metals  they  can  do  al- 
most the  same  work  as  our  own  skilled  workmen.  And 
they  can  do  it  while  living  upon  a  little  cold  rice,  some 
tepid  water,  and  perhaps  a  smoke  of  opium  every  ten 
days  or  so,  and  that  is  all.  .  .  .  The  street  scenes  outside 
were  even  more  characteristic  of  the  sharpness  of  the 
struggle  for  life  in  China  and  that  almost  incredible  cru- 
elty which  is  here  the  order  of  the  day.  Here  the  man 
who  "  falls  out "  for  a  moment  is  lost,  and  he  who  stum- 
bles is  never  given  a  chance  to  regain  his  footing.  Along 
these  winding  lanes  we  saw  coolies,  covered  with  sweaty 
lather,  push  their  heavily  laden  wheelbarrows  along  with 
an  utter  disregard  of  the  foot  passengers ;  with  vigor- 
ous rushes  they  would  even  send  the  wheels  over  the 
bodies  of  the  beggars  and  the  cripples  who  were  lying 
prostrate  in  their  way,  and  this  proceeding,  often  result- 
ing as  it  did  in  a  broken  or  a  smashed  limb,  was  taken 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course  by  all  concerned,  including 
the  victim.  In  watching  these  workmen,  the  coolies, 
and  the  boatmen,  and  in  fact  the  men  of  all  the  laboring 
classes,  I  was  more  than  once  struck  by  the  fact  that,  in 
spite  of  the  almost  incredible  condition  of  utter  want 
and  exposure  in  which  they  live,  the  very  great  major- 
ity of  them,  though  small  like  all  Cantonese,  were  physi- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  169 

cally  strong  and  vigorous.  We  were  not  long  in  finding 
out  the  explanation  of  this  apparent  anomaly.  It  is  that 
only  men  of  the  highest  physical  vigor  can  go  the  pace 
of  everyday  work  in  China ;  that  those  with  the  slightest 
physical  fault  soon  drop  out  and  end  their  days  in  cir- 
cumstances of  the  most  abject  misery,  which  we  were 
soon  to  observe  at  close  range. 

Our  guide  now  led  us  out  of  the  district  of  the  guilds 
and  the  corporations  down  into  a  low-lying,  evil-smell- 
ing quarter  of  the  city,  where  he  said  there  was  a  fa- 
mous temple,  in  which  sat  an  image  of  Kwannon,  who 
represents,  in  Buddhists'  philosophy,  or  mythology  — 
whichever  you  choose  to  call  it  —  Ceres,  or  Mother 
Humanity.  The  narrow  lanes,  through  which  we 
picked  our  way,  positively  swarmed  and  squirmed 
with  hundreds  of  diseased  and  misshapen  cripples. 
They  snarled  like  curs  at  our  heels,  and  fought  each 
other,  tooth  and  nail,  for  the  filthy  offal  that  was  to 
be  picked  up  out  of  the  mud  under  foot.  One  glance 
about  us  now,  and  we  had  no  doubt  that,  not  only 
the  human  dregs  of  Canton,  but  indeed  of  all  Asia,  had 
found  their  own  most  fitting  level  in  this  place;  and 
we  were  not  surprised  to  learn,  as  we  did  later  in  the 
day,  that  the  whole  temple  quarter  is  a  no  man's  land, 
much  frequented  by  the  "highbinders,"  and  a  safe  ref- 
uge for  all  criminals ;  and  that  it  is  a  place  which  the 
yamun  runners  shun,  and  where  no  mandarin  would 
venture  without  a  large  escort.  As  yet,  however,  ig- 
norant of  the  dangers  we  ran,  we  continued  our  voy- 
age of  discovery,  under  the  lead  of  our  guide,  whom 


iyo  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

we  had  inspired  with  some  of  our  own  curiosity  and 
thirst  for  knowledge.  The  streets  that  ran  down  into 
this  submerged  quarter  of  the  city  soon  dwindled  into 
mere  alley-ways,  in  which,  but  with  difficulty,  two  men 
could  pass  abreast. 

When  we  awakened  to  the  danger  we  were  incurring, 
it  was  too  late  to  turn  back,  even  had  we  been  dis- 
posed to  do  so.  The  black  looks  of  the  mob  of 
wretched  beggars  and  unsightly  cripples  had  suddenly 
changed,  and  they  were  now  giving  evidence  of  their 
hostility  in  a  more  active  way.  Showers  of  sticks  and 
stones  began  to  fall  about  our  heads.  Our  guide,  though 
thoroughly  alarmed  now,  fortunately  did  not  quite  lose 
his  nerve.  He  assured  us  that  we  could  escape  more 
quickly  from  the  robber  quarter  if  we  kept  on  past  the 
temple,  and  made  our  way  out  upon  the  other  side,  and, 
of  course,  once  we  were  in  for  the  scrape,  this  course 
was  more  to  our  liking  than  to  turn  back  with  our 
curiosity  unsatisfied ;  so,  with  heads  down  and  elbows 
in,  we  trotted  along  the  narrow  lanes,  now  taking  a 
group  of  cripples  as  a  hurdle,  and  again,  having  to 
clear  our  way  with  knock-down  blows  when  the  rascals 
massed  in  front  of  us. 

Jim's  camera  was  soon  smashed  to  bits  by  a  well- 
directed  cobblestone,  so  that,  in  the  future,  his. letters 
to  the  Logans  port  Sentinel  can  only  be  illustrated  by 
the  imagination  of  the  local  artist.  At  last,  after  about 
five  minutes  of  this,  covered  with  mud  and  filth,  but 
otherwise  unhurt,  we  emerged  from  the  darkness  of  the 
narrow  lanes  into  the  half  light  of  a  small  square,  or 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  171 

shed;  for  it  was  covered  with  a  "wave"  shaped  roof, 
under  which,  on  a  raised  pedestal  of  stone,  we  saw, 
for  a  passing  moment,  the  grinning  image  of  the  Chi- 
nese  mother  god.  The  atmosphere  of  the  place  was 
simply  horrible ;  the  air  we  breathed  clung  to  our  nos- 
trils and  poisoned  our  lungs  for  many  a  day  afterward ; 
and  the  unsightly  rows  of  worshippers,  crouching  before 
the  hideous  temple,  I  shall  never  forget  It  is  well  for 
the  god  Kwannon  that  he,  or  she  —  for  the  sex  seems 
doubtful  —  is  made  of  bronze,  or  else  he  could  not  sit 
there  and  smile  on,  through  the  ages  of  the  ages,  upon 
those  scenes  of  suffering;  we  only  had  the  time  and 
the  stomach  for  a  glance.  We  had,  it  seemed,  out-run 
our  pursuers  by  a  few  yards,  and  when  we  appeared  the 
crowds  about  the  shrine  seemed  taken  aback,  and  were 
at  a  loss  how  to  regard  our  intrusion.  When  we  surprised 
them,  those  who  were  nearest  to  the  grinning  god,  that 
seemed  to  mock  at  his  suffering  children,  were  strip- 
ping off  the  fetid  rags  from  their  diseased  limbs,  and 
hanging  them  up  before  the  shrine,  whether  as  a  re- 
buke to  the  bronze  monster,  or  in  an  attempt  to  move 
the  god  to  pity,  I  do  not  know.  In  truth,  we  now  had 
very  little  time  at  our  disposal  to  investigate,  for  the 
wretches  sprang  at  us  with  savage  cries.  The  crowds 
that  had  been  following  us  came  up,  and  so  the  chase 
began  again. 

We  ran  on,  touching  elbows  with  men  and  women 
who  were  swollen  to  twice  human  size  with  elephantiasis 
and  beri-beri,  and  jumping  high  above  the  "black" 
lepers  as  they  grabbed  at  our  feet.  Some  of  them  were 


172  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

covered  with  the  dark  spots  that  characterize  this  form 
of  leprosy,  and  many  of  them  were  so  wasted  away  in 
flesh  and  bone  that  only  the  merest  suggestion  of  the 
human  form  was  left.  Our  guide's  face  was  now  green 
with  fear,  and  had  we  needed  any  confirmation  of  the 
danger  of  our  position,  we  would  have  found  it  in  the 
beads  of  cold  perspiration  that  glistened  like  pearls 
upon  his  forehead.  It  was  clear  that  if  either  of  us 
went  down  we  were  both  lost ;  the  ground  underfoot 
seemed  to  be  simply  alive  with  these  yellow  adders, 
who  did  not  dare  to  face  us,  but  only  struck  when 
our  backs  were  turned.  A  long  sea  voyage  upon  a 
crowded  transport  is  not  a  good  preparation  for  a  race 
for  life,  but  our  foot-ball  training  and  the  long  trails  of 
the  Apaches  which  we  had  so  often  followed  through 
the  "boulder"  country  of  Arizona,  now  stood  us  in 
good  stead.  In  ten  minutes  we  struck  the  rising 
ground,  our  pursuers  dropped  behind,  and  soon  even 
their  cries  of  rage  and  disappointment  were  lost  in  the 
distance.  We  were  black  and  blue  in  every  limb,  but 
otherwise  safe  and  sound,  so  we  sat  down  to  take 
breath,  and  Jim  to  mourn  his  kodak. 

While  we  rested,  certainly  not  upon  our  laurels,  as 
Jim  facetiously  suggested,  we  were  surprised,  and  some- 
what alarmed,  too,  at  first  (we  thought  that  perhaps  a 
regular  hue  and  cry  had  been  raised  against  us,  and 
that  the  chase  was  about  to  begin  again),  to  hear  a 
tremendous  beating  of  tom-toms,  a  blare  of  discordant 
trumpets,  and  the  fall  of  many  footsteps  echoing  up  the 
street  behind  us. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  173 

"It  is  the  procession  of  some  mandarin  with  an 
escort  on  the  way  to  his  yamun,"  said  our  guide,  whose 
coolness  reassured  us. 

The  quarter  in  which  we  had  taken  refuge  seemed 
to  be  occupied  exclusively  by  small  shopkeepers,  and 
we  found  them  more  orderly  and  more  reconciled  to 
our  presence  among  them,  than  any  other  people  that 
we  had  stumbled  upon  in  the  course  of  the  day.  They 
were  no  less  Christian-hating  than  the  rest,  only  their 
aversion  was  displayed  in  a  less  objectionable  manner. 
As  we  passed  them  by,  men,  women,  and  children,  with 
one  accord,  simply  turned  their  backs  upon  us  and  spat 
upon  the  ground,  and  then  went  on  about  their  busi- 
ness. The  sound  of  the  approaching  procession,  however, 
evidently  filled  them  with  other  and  more  serious  cares. 
In  a  moment,  with  astonishing  speed,  every  door  and 
window  in  their  shops  was  closed,  and  the  tradesmen, 
their  assistants,  and  their  families  ranged  themselves 
upon  their  knees  in  long  lines  in  front  of  their  premises. 
Such  unattached  coolies  as  there  were  loafing  about, 
clad  in  fetid  rags  and  waiting  for  something  to  turn  up, 
stretched  themselves  out  at  full  length  in  the  street, 
and  banging  their  foreheads  to  the  ground,  hailed  the 
approaching  mandarin  in  loud  tones  as  "the  stoutest, 
the  best,  and  the  most  erudite  of  the  children  of 
Confucius."  1 

What  a  caricature  of  a  procession  it  was !  First 
came  rushing  ahead,  to  clear  the  way,  a  flight  of  breath- 

1  In  China  obesity  is  regarded  as  a  sign  of  inward  spiritual  grace  as  well 
as  of  material  prosperity;  a  lean  man  is  necessarily  a  bad  man.  —  THE 
EDITOR. 


174  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

less  runners ;  then  there  appeared  a  huge  red  placard, 
upon  which  were  fully  set  forth  the  titles  and  the  other 
claims  to  greatness  of  the  official  who  was  drawing  near. 
This  placard  was  closely  guarded  by  a  crowd  of  soldiers. 
Each  man  wore  a  red  tassel  to  his  cap,  but  as  to  the 
rest  of  their  equipment  and  armament,  they  were  as 
mixed  and  motley  as  Falstaff  s  army.  Then  came  a 
small  battalion  of  men  who  were  armed  with  every  con- 
ceivable weapon,  from  the  heavy  gingals,  which  require 
two  men  to  carry  (they  were  in  use  in  Europe,  I 
believe,  at  the  time  of  Gustavus  Adolphus),  down  to 
the  footmen  who  carried  axes  and  sharpened  staves. 
In  the  midst  of  this  rabble  the  great  man,  invisible  in 
his  green  covered  chair,  was  carried  by,  and  another 
battalion  brought  up  the  rear. 

We  had  gotten  back  our  wind  now,  so  we  followed 
the  great  man  at  what  we  hoped  would  be  considered  a 
respectful  distance,  for  we  were  curious  to  see  him  in 
his  yamun,  dispensing  justice.  Soon  the  procession 
came  to  a  halt  before  a  gate,  which  was  to  be  distin- 
guished from  other,  unofficial  gates  by  two  very  tall 
bamboo  poles,  from  which  waved  little  flags  and  other 
streamers,  which  meant  nothing  to  us,  but  were  doubt- 
less intelligible  to  those  directly  concerned.  We  crept 
cautiously  into  the  courtyard,  in  the  background  of  which 
rose  the  judge's  bench,  and  we  soon  saw  that  it  was 
simply  a  broker's  office,  where  you  could  get  just  the 
treatment  and  the  justice  you  were  able  and  willing  to 
pay  for.  It  was  wonderful  to  notice  the  sudden  trans- 
formation in  our  guide  at  this  stage  of  the  game.  He 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  175 

who  had  been  so  voluble  and  so  obtrusive  now  seemed 
suddenly  deprived  of  the  power  of  speech.  When 
finally  we  became  annoyed  at  his  strange  conduct  and 
addressed  him  with  some  emphasis,  he  moved  away 
with  an  icy  stare,  and  it  was  evident  that  he  did  not 
wish  to  be  seen  "riding  in  our  carriage."  Well,  after 
all,  we  did  not  need  his  comments  and  explanations 
just  then.  Chinese  venality  and  corruption  have  at 
least  the  virtue  of  being  open  and  aboveboard,  and 
the  money  was  passed  between  the  prisoners  and  the 
clerks  of  the  court,  as  though  it  were  over  a  counter 
in  legitimate  trade. 

Soon  the  shrieks  of  the  victims  in  an  adjacent  court- 
yard told  us  that  the  condemned  men  were  beginning 
to  "  eat  stick."  Upon  some  we  noticed  the  bamboo 
strokes  were  inflicted  with  blood-curdling  severity; 
upon  others  they  seemed  to  fall  softly,  as  though 
nothing  more  than  love-taps,  those  who  received  these 
delicate  attentions  did  not,  however,  fail  to  make  even 
a  greater  outcry  than  those  who  were  more  severely 
handled.  The  one  peep  into  this  courtyard  which  we 
ventured  was  rewarded,  not  with  a  Chinese  horror,  as 
we  had  feared,  but  by  a  most  amusing  picture.  One  of 
the  poor  devils  brought  before  the  court  had  not  had 
enough  money  to  square  the  judge,  or  perhaps,  with 
the  characteristic  economy  of  his  race,  he  had  thought 
it  cheaper  to  fix  the  executor  of  the  court's  decree. 
However  this  may  be,  when  his  turn  came  we  saw  him 
pass  a  Mexican  dollar  neatly  wrapped  in  tissue-paper 
to  the  bamboo-swinger,  in  appreciation  of  which  this 


1 76  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

official  covered  the  place  of  punishment  —  in  China,  as 
well  as  in  other  countries  —  with  a  thickly  woven  net- 
work of  bamboo  fibre,  upon  which  his  blows  fell  furi- 
ously, but  without  causing  any  pain. 

Once  we  were  outside  the  courtyard,  and  safe  from 
the  prying  eyes  of  the  yamun  runners,  our  guide,  Mr. 
William  Chang,  rejoined  us,  quite  as  though  nothing 
had  happened.  We  were  so  dependent  upon  his  guid- 
ance, we  thought  it  best  not  to  refer  to  the  fact  that  he 
had  practically  disowned  us  before  the  seats  of  the 
mighty,  and  soon  he  began  to  discourse  upon  the  judi- 
cial system  of  the  land,  from  which,  in  a  spirit  of  self- 
preservation,  he  had  fled.  His  statements  were  simple 
and  to  the  point,  but,  for  all  that,  his  indictment  was 
none  the  less  scathing.  Strangely  enough,  he  showed 
no  feeling  of  any  kind  in  the  matter ;  he  simply  stated 
the  facts  as  he  found  them,  and  as  they  are.  In  the  five 
short  years  he  had  been  away  he  had  learned  to  speak 
almost  perfect  English,  and  to  have  as  great  a  contempt 
for  his  former  people  as  any  other  Britisher,  for,  of 
course,  he  had  become  a  naturalized  subject  of  her 
Majesty,  or  else  he  would  not  have  dared  to  return  to 
Canton.  He  concluded  his  wonderful  exposure  of 
official  corruption  in  China  —  which  I  promised  not  to 
enter  upon,  as  Jim  proposes  to  make  it  the  subject  of 
his  next  letter  to  the  Sentinel —  by  saying :  — 

"Chinamen  call  their  country  the  earth,  or  the  more 
modest  say  it  is  the  Middle  Kingdom,  and  the  rest  of 
the  world,  only  a  few  unattached  countries,  which  they 
do  not  care  to  take.  You  foreigners  call  China  the 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  177 

Flowery  Land,  and  the  inhabitants  —  I  suppose  that  is  a 
joke  upon  their  misery  —  the  Celestials,  but  we  who  live 
under  the  British  flag,  and  who  have  tasted  English 
justice  —  we  call  China  the  land  of  Tarn  Sung,  which 
means  '  official  squeeze  and  mandarin  rapacity.'  " 

From  the  way  in  which  he  urged  us  to  follow  him, 
and  the  speed  with  which  he  led  the  way,  it  was  evident 
that  Mr.  Chang  set  great  store  upon  the  "  sight "  he 
now  proposed  to  show  us.  Had  we  had  but  the  slight- 
est inkling  of  what  it  was,  we  would  have  quit  on  the 
spot,  for  neither  Jim  nor  I  cared  to  face  another  hor- 
ror; but  before  we  knew  what  he  was  about,  he 
brought  us  out  on  the  execution  ground  and  the  place 
where  those  condemned  to  death  are  tortured  before 
they  are  allowed  to  die.  First  we  stumbled  upon  a  suc- 
cession of  pens  or  cages,  in  which  the  prisoners,  often 
even  without  a  loin-cloth,  await  the  pleasure  of  their 
jailers  as  to  the  execution  of  their  sentences.  These 
poor  wretches  followed  us  with  piteous,  beseeching  eyes 
and  outstretched  arms ;  they  stood  up  to  their  knees  in 
the  filth  of  their  cages ;  utter  starvation  was  written  on 
their  emaciated  faces,  and  their  backs  were  scarred  and 
seamed  with  the  punishment  of  the  bamboo.  We  could 
not  resist  their  appeals,  and  having  secured  the  permis- 
sion of  their  guards  by  a  bribe  which  Mr.  William 
Chang  administered  in  the  most  approved  Chinese 
fashion,  we  gave  them  the  painted  food  which  we 
secured  from  a  neighboring  restaurant  until  all  our 
money  was  gone  and  our  credit  exhausted.  Then  we 
left  them  to  snarl  and  fight  among  themselves  over 


178  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

the  remnants  of  their  feast.  As  we  turned  away, 
we  had  the  ill-fortune  to  stumble  upon  the  "pagoda 
of  torment,"  as  it  is  called.  Here  about  one  hundred 
instruments  of  torture  of  the  most  revolting  character 
are  in  use,  and  they  were  spread  out  and  arranged 
before  us  in  the  order  of  their  severity.  We  saw  the 
bottles  out  of  which  the  boiling  oil  is  dropped  into  the 
fresh  wounds  of  the  tortured ;  we  saw  the  blood-stained 
rakes  made  of  razor-blades,  with  which  the  flesh  of  the 
victim  is  curried  in  the  punishment  called  lingschi,  or 
"  slicing " ;  also  the  pincers  with  which  the  nails  of 
fingers  and  toes  are  pulled  out,  and  the  diabolical 
spoons  with  which  the  eyes  are  extracted  from  their 
sockets.  .  .  . 

The  memory  of  one  scene  of  torture  that  fell  under 
my  eyes  haunts  me  yet.  The  victim  was  long  since 
dead,  but  no  one  had  taken  the  trouble  to  remove 
his  body  from  the  vice-like  grip  of  the  instrument  by 
which  he  had  been  done  to  death.  The  man  condemned 
to  this  torture  enters  (and  they  all  go  willingly,  only  too 
anxious  for  the  end)  a  great  wickerwork  cage,  and  a 
collar  filled  with  spikes  and  nails,  pointing  inward,  is 
made  fast  about  his  neck.  Then  it  is  slowly  raised  —  the 
collar  I  mean  —  and,  of  course,  screaming  from  the  pain 
which  the  sharp-pointed  spikes  inflict,  the  miserable 
victim  rises  with  it.  At  last,  standing  upon  the  tips  of 
his  toes,  he  can  rise  no  higher,  and  there  the  spiked 
collar  is  made  fast  to  the  sides  of  the  cage.  Then  there 
is  a  lull,  an  almost  complete  cessation  of  torture,  the 
length  of  which  depends  entirely  upon  how  long  the 


THE   GOLDEN    HORSESHOE  179 

victim  can  stand  upon  his  toes;  with  most  men  this 
is  not  long,  half  an  hour  at  the  most ;  and  then  the 
sufferer  sinks  down  on  the  soles  of  his  feet,  only  to 
spring  up  again  on  his  toes  with  howls  of  agony,  for 
of  course  the  nails  of  the  collar  have  torn  his  neck. 
And  so  through  various  stages  the  torture  proceeds, 
until  sooner  or  later,  according  to  the  good  or  bad  for- 
tune of  the  victim,  his  jugular  is  severed  by  one  of  the 
spikes,  and  he  bleeds  to  death.  From  every  square  inch 
of  the  cage  protrude  other  spikes  and  sharp-pointed 
instruments,  so  arranged  that  every  struggle  the  man 
makes  to  save  himself  only  adds  to  his  agony.  There 
was  much  more  to  see,  but  we  had  seen  enough,  and 
more.  We  hurried  away  down  an  avenue  dotted  with 
great  earthenware  jars,  into  which  the  bodies  of  the  vic- 
tims of  the  torture  are  thrown  and  left  until  it  shall 
please  the  city  scavenger  to  come  and  get  them.  .  .  . 

Several  hours  later  we  emerged  from  the  incredible 
misery  and  piggery  of  the  inner  city,  and  filled  our 
lungs  with  great  draughts  of  fresh  air  as  we  strolled 
along  the  river  bank  on  our  way  to  the  Shameen  bridge. 
Suddenly  there  shot  out  before  my  eyes  a  strangely 
familiar  figure,  the  only  one  I  had  come  across  through- 
out this  day  of  outlandish  and  unheard-of  sights.  It 
was  growing  dark  so  rapidly,  that  for  a  moment  I 
thought  the  surprising  figure  that  seemed  to  flit  across 
my  path  was  simply  the  creature  of  a  feverish  and 
over-wrought  imagination.  However,  I  determined  to 
hurry  after  the  furtive  shadow,  to  run  it  down,  what- 
ever it  might  be.  The  figure,  I  should  tell  you,  was 


i8o  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

the  exact  presentment  of  one  of  the  cuts  we  used  to 
gaze  upon  with  open-mouthed  amazement  when  study- 
ing our  intermediate  "  jographies,"  and  I  gave  chase 
because  I  was  anxious  to  know  if  there  was  at  least  one 
substantial  fact  in  that  farrago  of  nonsense  we  were 
taught  about  China  when  I  was  a  boy.  The  pursuit 
led  me  in  and  out  among  the  columns  of  the  colon- 
naded street  which  runs  parallel  to  the  river.  On  the 
steep  ascent  by  the  drawbridge  I  came  up  with  my  man, 
and  making  a  grab  at  his  shoulder,  missed  it,  but  secured 
his  pigtail,  and,  as  our  skipper  would  say,  "brought 
him  up  with  a  round  turn."  When  Jim  and  Mr.  Will- 
iam Chang,  who  had  followed  more  deliberately,  arrived 
on  the  scene,  they  found  me  spinning  my  captive 
around  for  inspection.  The  poor  fellow  was  too  fright- 
ened even  to  give  voice  to  his  fears,  and  spun  around 
upon  his  heels  as  obediently  to  my  touch  as  a  top. 

"Did  he  steal  your  watch?"  shouted  Mr.  Chang;  but 
Jim  opened  his  eyes  in  astonishment,  and  exclaimed  :  — 

"  The  rat  and  cat  merchant  of  our  intermediate 
'jog'!  why,  it's  worth  a  trip  of  ten  thousand  miles 
alone  to  see  him  ;  oh,  for  my  kodak !  " 

And  so  it  was  we  came  up  with  him  in  real  life  after 
all  these  years.  About  his  neck  there  was  slung  a 
wooden  yoke  or  hub,  from  which  expanded,  like  the 
spokes  of  a  wheel,  half  a  dozen  poles  from  five  to  six 
feet  in  length.  From  each  one  hung  a  score  of  rats 
or  cats  in  the  most  advanced  stages  of  decomposition. 
The  ancient  halberdiers  who  guard  the  Shameen 
bridge  now  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  the  rat  mer- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  181 

chant,  who  had  found  his  voice,  filled  the  air  with  his 
lamentations.  We  soon  placated  them,  one  and  all,  how- 
ever, with  a  villanous-looking  piece  of  paper,  which 
Mr.  Chang  said,  if  presented  at  any  respectable  "  cash  " 
shop,  could  be  exchanged  for  a  dollar.  Then  the  rat 
merchant  disappeared  into  thin  air,  leaving  a  trail  be- 
hind him,  however,  which  it  would  not  require  the 
nose  of  a  bloodhound  to  follow ;  and  the  halberdiers, 
sneaking  down  under  the  shadow  of  the  bridge  which 
is  confided  to  their  vigilant  keeping,  stretched  them- 
selves out  under  the  straw-roofed  flatboats  and  began 
to  smoke  their  "  dope,"  and  so  the  incident  closed. 

After  a  bath  we  forgot  our  bruises  and  the  fatigue 
of  our  twelve  hours'  slumming,  and  climbing  into  chairs 
were  carried  to  the  Club,  where  we  had  been  invited  to 
dine  by  an  Englishman,  Mr.  Watson,  the  most  cele- 
brated "tea  taster"  in  all  China.  Over  our  mulliga- 
tawny, a  favorite  soup  in  the  Far  East,  especially  when 
seasoned  with  a  little  port  or  sherry,  Watson  asked  us 
what  we  had  seen  during  the  day,  and  I  recited  our 
adventure  with  the  rat  and  cat  pedler.  It  was  not 
exactly  fitted  for  dinner  table-talk  in  more  squeamish 
climes ;  but,  after  all,  it  was  the  least  disgusting  of  our 
experiences.  Watson  chuckled  as  though  we  were  tell- 
ing him  the  greatest  joke  in  the  world. 

"  He  ran  away  because  he  thought  you  were  going 
to  have  him  arrested.  If  you  don't  mind  I  will  tell 
you  a  story  about  the  rat-catching  guild  and  their 
backers." 

We  didn't  mind  —  you  know  you  don't  in  China  —  so 


182  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

he  began :  "  For  twenty  years,  foreign  influence  in 
China  has  been  divided  and  rendered  ineffective  because 
of  the  selfish  interests,  or  '  private  pigeons,'  as  we  say 
out  here,  that  each  of  the  powers  has  up  its  sleeve,  but 
upon  one  question  the  ambassadors  have  presented  an 
unbroken  front  to  the  Tsungli  Yamun,  and  that  is  in 
demanding  the  suppression  of  rat  and  cat  restaurants 
in  all  treaty  ports  open  to  foreign  residents  and  com- 
merce. Of  course  the  explanation  of  our  interest  in 
the  matter  is  not  far  to  seek.  More  by  this  loathsome 
food  than  any  other  single  agency  the  bubonic  plague, 
which  is  entirely  a  filth  disease,  is  propagated,  and  the 
result  is  a  great  loss  of  life  and  of  profitable  trade  to 
those  of  us  who  have,  or  think  we  have,  vested  interests 
of  one  kind  or  another  out  here.  You  should  know, 
though  the  connection  will  escape  you  for  a  moment, 
that  we  have  in  Canton  a  coffin  trust,  which  is  as  rich 
and  powerful,  though  not  so  wide-spread,  perhaps,  as 
your  Standard  Oil,  and  it  is  a  great  deal  older.  In 
fact  it  is,  I  should  say,  without  knowing  positively,  the 
original  trust  of  the  world,  and  certainly  its  books  run 
back  many  hundred  years.  Throughout  all  the  revolu- 
tions and  political  convulsions  which  have  shaken  even 
conservative  China  from  time  to  time,  the  coffin  trust 
has  stood  firm  as  a  rock,  with  shares  away  up  out  of 
sight  and  not  to  be  bought  on  the  open  market.  In 
the  earlier  days,  I  believe,  rival  trusts  were  started  from 
time  to  time,  but  not  one  was  able  to  compete  success- 
fully, and  for  the  last  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  the 
attempt  has  not  been  repeated.  To-day  in  China,  south 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  183 

of  Amoy  at  least,  no  man  can  shuffle  off  this  mortal 
coil  without  paying  tribute  to  the  coffin  trust. 

"You  would  imagine  —  I  certainly  did  —  that  there 
could  be  no  business  more  free  from  market  fluctuations 
than  the  sale  of  coffins,  but  the  experience  of  the  trust 
goes  to  show  that  they  have  their  dull  seasons,  too.  Natu- 
rally desirous  of  keeping  trade  brisk  and  steady,  the 
coffin  trust  from  time  to  time  has  invested  some  of  its 
surplus  capital  in  what  you  might  call  '  feeders,'  to  com- 
bat the  Chinese  tendency  to  longevity.  Their  favorite 
and  most  successful  method  of  stimulating  the  demand 
for  coffins  has  been  in  lending  money  to  start  rat  and 
cat  restaurants,  very  much  in  the  same  way  as  our 
brewers  at  home  advance  money  to  start  public  houses 
in  promising  localities.  The  death-rate  in  Chinese  cities, 
at  least,  is  of  course  always  very  high,  but  whenever 
an  epidemic  is  bred,  why,  of  course  the  trust  declares 
an  extra  dividend. 

"  Now  a  practical  people,  not  given  to  superstition, 
like  the  English  or  the  Americans,  if  coffins  were  too 
dear,  would  make  shift  with  a  shroud  or  a  cheese-cloth, 
or  anything  that  came  handy,  but  your  Chinaman,  so 
utilitarian  about  all  that  pertains  to  life,  is  the  very 
quintessence  of  sentimentality  and  extravagance  in 
everything  that  relates  to  death.  He  would  deprive 
himself  of  anything  and  give  up  everything,  includ- 
ing even  the  prospect  of  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty  more 
years  of  life,  rather  than  run  any  danger  of  passing 
through  the  dark  gates  that  lead  to  the  hereafter  in  any 
other  form  or  guise  than  that  which  has  been  prescribed 


184  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

by  the  Confucian  Board  of  Rites  since  the  beginning 
of  the  year  one.  Believe  me,  this  is  not  an  extravagant 
statement.  I  can  assure  you  hardly  a  week  passes  in 
China  but  what  some  coolie,  who  has  but  a  doubtful 
prospect  of  a  funeral  on  his  own  account,  steps  forward 
to  take  the  place  at  the  execution  block  of  a  wealthy 
criminal  who  is  rich  enough  to  pay  his  debts  to  society 
in  the  person  of  a  substitute.  These  substitutes  are 
found  willing  and  even  eager  to  die  a  painful  and  an 
ignominious  death  provided  only  that  they  are  allowed 
to  die  in  rich  clothing,  that  they  enjoy  the  advantages 
and  the  honors  of  an  orthodox  funeral  which  means 
plenty  of  tom-tomming  to  keep  away  the  evil  spirits, 
and  the  red  light  of  a  great  number  of  prayer  papers 
to  attract  the  good  ones.  All  of  these  expenses,  of 
course,  the  wealthy  criminal,  who  'resumes  business 
as  before  at  the  old  stand,'  is  expected  to  pay,  and 
does  pay  religiously.  Again,  I  suppose  you  know  that 
in  life  there  are  no  people  in  the  world  upon  whom  the 
home  tie  is  less  binding  than  upon  the  Chinese.  They 
roam  all  over  their  own  vast  empire,  from  Siberia  on 
the  north  to  Sumatra  on  the  south,  to  speak  only  of  the 
Eastern  hemisphere,  in  search  of  work.  They  shiver 
from  the  cold  while  working  on  the  Trans-Siberian 
Railway,  and  they  swelter  in  the  tropics  when  seeking 
bird's-nest  soup  for  the  tables  of  their  mandarins.  But 
when  they  are  dead,  when  they  can  feel  nothing,  they 
want  to  lie  comfortably  at  home  in  the  family  acre  and 
drink  in  the  incense  which  their  pious  descendants  will 
surely  burn  before  the  ancestral  tablets.  With  these 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  185 

ideas  so  generally  accepted  you  may  indeed  imagine 
that  the  coffin  trust  has  a  good  thing  of  it." 

"A  lead  pipe  cinch,"  said  Jim,  with  emphasis. 

Our  host  looked  perplexed;  then  brightening  up  he 
said :  — 

"  Ah,  yes,  quite  so.  What  a  deuced  graphic  way  you 
Americans  have  of  putting  things.  And  now  I  am 
going  to  tell  you  how  I  know  that  the  coffin  trust  is 
so  flourishing.  In  1895  we  were  having  a  very  slack 
season  of  it  in  teas,  and  I  was  condoling  with  one  of  the 
largest  hong  merchants,  a  Chinese  millionnaire,  over  the 
disastrous  result  of  the  crop,  when  he  said,  with  a  benign 
smile  —  I  had  quite  forgotten  that  he  was  the  king-pin 
in  the  coffin  trust  — '  It  has  been  a  bad  year  for  the 
teas,  but  we  have  made  it  all  up  in  coffins.'  Then  he 
went  on  to  say  that  in  Canton  alone,  though  to  be  sure 
some  of  the  boxes  were  for  export  trade,  he  had  sold 
ninety  thousand  coffins  in  the  past  seven  months.  Since 
then,  whenever  I  run  across  the  old  boy,  I  make  him 
take  me  into  his  confidence  and  tell  me  more  about 
this  astonishing  business.  Two  weeks  ago  when  I  met 
him,  however,  he  was  as  glum  as  the  undertaker  of  the 
stage.  '  Only  twenty-five  thousand  coffins  this  sum- 
mer,' he  protested,  'and  yet  both  the  plagues  are 
going.'  'What  can  be  the  matter,'  I  inquired;  'is 
the  human  race  getting  tougher  ? '  '  No,'  he  answered, 
'  it's  the  viceroy.  He  has  those  new-fangled  notions 
about  the  rat  and  cat  restaurants  and  has  closed  them 
all  up,  and  has  even  gone  so  far  as  to  have  all  the 
pedlers  of  rat  and  cat  meat  expelled  from  the  city. 


1 86  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

We  have  appealed  from  him  to  Pekin,  and  if  he  does 
not  recall  his  order  soon,  why  there  will  be  trouble,  and 
when  he  goes  away,  as  go  he  will,  we  won't  ask  him 
for  his  boots  to  hang  up  over  the  city  gate.' 1 

"Two  days  later  —  I  thought  the  viceroy  would  listen 
to  the  trust  —  I  read  in  the  paper  that  his  order  had 
been  revoked,  and  now  the  filth  restaurants  are  going 
full  blast  again,  but  probably  your  pedler  had  not 
heard  the  news."  .  .  . 

Jim,  who  had  listened  to  this  ghastly  tale  with 
breathless  attention,  now  turned  to  me  and  shouted : 

"Hurrah,  Herndon!  Hurrah  for  our  octopuses  at 
home !  Their  burden  is  easy,  their  yoke  is  light  in 
comparison  to  the  coffin  trust  of  China." 

Of  course  I  cannot  vouch  for  this  story,  and  yet  the 
responsibility  for  it  does  not  lie  exclusively  with  our 
host,  Mr.  Watson.  A  dozen  men  of  all  nationalities 
sat  around  the  club  table  as  he  told  it,  and  each 
one  had  some  detail  drawn  from  his  own  personal  expe- 
rience, to  add  to  the  grewsome  picture,  and  no  one 
objected  to  it  as  not  being  on  the  whole  a  faithful 
example  of  Chinese  business  methods  and  official  cor- 
ruption. 

1  This  threat  of  the  rich  Chinaman  will  prove  rather  perplexing  to  the 
average  reader.  He  refers  to  a  curious  custom  in  China.  At  the  end  of  their 
term  of  office  —  and  for  various  reasons,  viceroys  are  not  allowed  to  remain  at 
one  post  for  more  than  four  years,  —  if  his  rule  has  been  on  the  whole  accept- 
able to  the  people,  they  do  him  the  honor  of  asking  him  as  he  takes  his  de- 
parture to  leave  his  boots  behind.  These  are  suspended  above  the  city  gate 
in  memory  of  his  successful  administration.  This  compliment  is  rarely  paid 
in  China  to-day;  as  a  general  thing  the  people  are  only  too  glad  to  see  the 
viceroys  depart,  and  with  their  boots  on.  —  THE  EDITOR, 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  187 

The  next  day  was  scorchingly  hot,  and  I  am  very 
glad  indeed  to  hear  from  many  quarters  that  we  are 
not  likely  to  experience  such  weather  in  the  Philip- 
pines. Jim  and  I  were  quite  content  to  let  Mr.  William 
Chang  go  out  with  a  party  of  globe-trotters  while  we  sat 
under  the  punkah  until  the  Hong  Kong  boat  left.  In 
a  few  hours  our  dry,  parched  faces  were  fanned  by 
the  fresh  breezes  of  the  sea,  and  we  had  looked  for 
the  last  time,  I  hope,  upon  all  the  filth  and  inhumanity 
of  that  world  which  is  Asia  of  and  for  the  Asiatics,  unre- 
strained. I,  of  course,  do  not  know  whether  it  be  true, 
as  some  theologians  maintain  that  the  Chinese  are  con- 
demned to  eternal  damnation  because  they  have  not 
heard  or  have  not  heeded  the  word  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  but  I  do  know,  with  a  positive  sickening  certainty, 
that,  as  long  as  they  live  they  are  condemned  to  lead  lives 
after  which  the  torments  of  hell,  so  far  as  known,  can  be 
but  a  pleasant  change ;  and,  believe  me,  the  moans  and 
even  the  howls  of  those  wretched  submerged  millions 
that  still  ring  in  my  ear  are  not  any  more  easy  to  listen 
to  because  of  the  fact  that  they  are  hardly  human 
cries.  .  .  . 

Soon,  as  the  island  of  Hong  Kong  rose  out  of  the 
mist  before  us,  we  turned  our  thoughts  away  from  this 
sad  picture  and  the  no  less  distressing  memory  of  what 
the  once  admirable  Portuguese  civilization  had  come  to 
mean  in  the  East.  I  can  assure  you  that  we  looked 
upon  the  English  fortress  and  the  English  market-place 
as  it  came  into  view  with  very  different  thoughts  than 
when  we  first  arrived  from  Singapore.  For  us  Hong 


1 88  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Kong  is  no  longer  simply  the  advance  post  of  a  nation 
of  shopkeepers  extracting  what  money  they  can  out 
of  the  golden  East.  Now  we  recognize  in  it  the  seat 
of  the  greatest  power  for  civilization  and  for  the  ad- 
vance of  humanity  in  the  China  Seas,  and  I  was  truly 
glad  to  see  that  this  stronghold  of  hope  was  built  upon 
a  rock,  and  I  gloried  in  its  peerless  strength.  Jim  had 
very  much  the  same  idea,  though  he  put  it  in  a  different 
way.  As  we  came  abreast  the  lights  of  the  world  city 
of  Victoria,  he  lifted  his  hat  and  said,  "  Herndon,  do 
you  know,  I  am  glad  the  queen  is  my  aunt,  after  all." 

The  morning  of  the  next  day  we  truants  were  on 
duty  examining  stores  which  the  Sherman  was  to 
carry  across  to  Manila  for  Admiral  Dewey  as  well  as 
for  the  army.  The  repairs  upon  the  transport  are 
proceeding  apparently  to  the  satisfaction  of  our  skipper, 
and  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  a  week  hence 
we  shall  be  in  Manila  Bay ;  and  then  to  business. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  we  left  cards  and  a  letter 
which  Burton  had  given  us  on  one  of  the  merchant 
princes  of  the  place.  He  had  assured  us  that  this 
gentleman,  a  Mr.  Aylward,  a  son  of  the  first  English 
merchant  established  in  the  colony,  was,  as  he  put  it, 
"  distinctly  worth  while."  He  had  lived  out  in  the 
East  all  his  life,  and  would  be  in  a  position,  Burton 
thought,  to  answer  the  innumerable  questions  which 
were  suggested  every  minute  of  the  day  by  our  new 
and  surprising  surroundings.  This  was  evidently  just 
the  man  we  wanted  to  meet,  for  such  acquaintances  as 
we  had  hitherto  made  at  the  Club  were,  or  pretended 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  189 

to  be,  as  ignorant  as  carps  concerning  the  history  of 
the  colony ;  but  unfortunately  we  did  not  find  him  at 
home.  Our  other  acquaintances  seemed  to  think  that 
Hong  Kong,  like  Topsy,  "had  just  growed  there,"  or 
that  their  predecessors  had  found  it  built  and  ready 
to  receive  them  as  they  came  sailing  around  the  world 
in  their  English  ships.  Later,  we  secured  a  couple  of 
China  ponies,  and  went  out  for  a  ride.  As  we  gal- 
loped out  along  the  Queen's  Road,  our  short-legged 
Manchurian  ponies  gave  us  something  of  the  long 
forgotten  sensation  of  riding  hobby-horses.  Once  in 
the  open  country,  we  entered  a  small  canon  called 
Happy  Valley.  It  is  a  lovely  place.  All  the  beau- 
ties of  tropical  nature  which  seem  to  be  denied  the 
rest  of  the  sterile  island  have  been  lavished  here  with 
a  bountiful  hand.  At  the  entrance,  the  valley  is  com- 
paratively broad  and  carpeted  with  grass  that  might 
have  grown  in  Old  England,  so  green  and  thick  and 
velvety  it  is.  We  rode  past  the  officers  of  the  garrison 
playing  polo,  and  the  Sikhs  of  the  Hong  Kong  regi- 
ment taking  a  dignified  amusement  in  some  Indian 
game,  which  I  did  not  quite  understand,  and  the  sol- 
dier boys  of  the  English  regiment  playing  foot-ball,  just 
as  they  do  all  the  world  round.  We  were  particularly 
struck  and  amused  by  a  lot  of  little  school-girls,  who 
were  having  a  picnic  and  running  foot-races.  After 
each  one  of  these  contests,  the  defeated  maidens  would 
sob  bitterly  until  the  victor  consented  to  "  run  it  over 
again."  And  again  I  thought  I  saw  why  it  is  that 
the  English  make  better  colonists  than  the  French. 


i  go  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

And  then,  a  little  later,  we  came  to  the  burying- 
place,  where  in  the  cool  ground  those  are  laid  who  fall 
in  the  heat  of  the  battle  for  civilization.  A  week  ago 
we  would  have  gone  through  this  court  of  peace  with 
but  a  passing  glance  and  the  stereotyped  respect  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  pay  the  dead.  But  this  was 
changed  now  —  we  had  seen  the  brothers  of  these  men 
at  work,  and  we  wanted  to  know  in  what  quarter  of  the 
field  those  who  were  buried  here  had  laid  down  their 
lives. 

As  we  walked  through  the  long  rows  of  graves,  and 
read  the  simple  epitaphs  which  told  of  how  they  had 
died  upon  the  battle-fields  of  strenuous  life,  we  could 
not  but  raise  our  hand  to  the  salute  with  each  tomb- 
stone that  we  passed,  for  we  were  conscious  in  our 
hearts  of  having  wronged  them,  and  we  wished  to 
make  what  reparation  we  could.  What  touched  us 
most  was  that  they  were  all  so  young.  They  had 
given  up  their  lives  when  the  sacrifice  is  a  sacrifice 
indeed  —  in  the  flower  of  youth.  Now  and  again  we 
paused  and  read  the  epitaphs ;  short  and  concise  they 
were,  but  more  than  one  thrilled  us  through  and 
through  like  a  trumpet  blast.  This  one  had  died  in 
fighting  the  famine  in  Hainan.  Here  were  sleeping 
together  two  young  midshipmen  who  were  murdered 
by  pirates  off  Kowloon.  Here  is  resting  a  soldier  of 
the  Cross  who  carried  the  word  into  Honan,  the  most 
Christian-hating  province  of  China,  where  he  was  cru- 
cified, and  his  body  thrown  to  famished  dogs.  Here 
lies  a  young  doctor  who  died  fighting  the  plague  in 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  191 

the  Red  River  country,  and  over  there  a  young  trader, 
the  pioneer  of  the  West  River,  where  he  was  murdered 
by  his  own  crew.  He  is  dead,  but  his  work  lives  after 
him,  for  the  West  River  is  open  to  the  trade,  and  the 
commerce,  and  the  civilization  of  the  Western  world 
to-day.  Over  there  in  a  secluded  corner  is  sleeping  a 
young  engineer  "who,"  so  the  epitaph  runs,  "at  the 
request  of  the  director  general  of  the  Yellow  River, 
'China's  sorrow,'  was  permitted  by  the  Colonial  Govern- 
ment to  go  to  the  scene  of  the  floods  for  the  purpose 
of  devising  a  scheme  to  prevent  their  recurrence.  He 
was  drowned  in  the  waters  he  attempted  to  control, 
but,"  concludes  this  epitaph  with  a  sober  note  of 
triumph,  '/the  works  that  he  designed  were  brought 
to  a  successful  conclusion  after  his  death  by  two  of 
his  countrymen  who,  undeterred  by  his  fate,  followed 
in  his  footsteps." 

"That's  the  whole  thing  in  a  nutshell,"  said  Jim. 
"  It  goes  hard  with  the  pioneer ;  more  often  than  not 
he  gets  wiped  out ;  then  the  other  fellows  come  on  and 
do  the  business,  God  bless  them." 

On  our  return  to  the  Club,  we  found  a  very  cordial 
invitation  from  Mr.  Aylward  to  dine  with  him  that 
evening,  and  at  half-past  seven  the  chairs  and  coolies 
arrived  to  take  us  to  his  home  half-way  up  the  moun- 
tain. There  we  found  to  our  dismay  quite  a  large  party 
assembled,  including  the  chief  justice,  and  the  acting 
governor,  and  the  vice-admiral  and  an  under  secretary 
of  state  travelling  around  the  world,  and  they  were  all, 
including  two  M.  P.'s,  passed  over  in  favor  of  the 


192  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Anglo-American  alliance,  and  your  humble  servant, 
who,  as  the  representative  of  Uncle  Sam,  had  the 
honor  of  taking  the  hostess  in  to  dinner. 

While  we  were  all  settling  down  comfortably,  I  must 
tell  you  a  very  good  joke  on  Heth.  Of  late,  the  airs 
and  foreign  graces  which  some  of  our  Plattsburg  boys 
have  picked  up  on  their  journey  around  the  world 
have  grown  quite  noticeable.  They  have  become 
polyglots,  and  pose  as  men  who  have  seen  many  cities 
and  strange  countries,  and  cannot  contemplate  the 
prospect  of  ever  settling  down  again  to  a  humdrum 
army  post  existence.  This  fever  has  even  reached  the 
officers'  mess.  Jim,  particularly,  has  been  putting  on 
recently  no  end  of  foreign  "  lugs,"  and  in  Singapore  he 
confided  in  me,  half  in  jest  and  half  in  earnest,  that  he 
had  begun  to  feel  just  like  an  African  explorer  he  had 
once  seen  in  a  circus,  with  a  dog-faced  boy  acting  as 
valet.  At  this  dinner,  however,  fate  overtook  Jim  in 
the  shape  of  a  young  lady  —  a  fairly  young  lady  —  but 
"old  enough  to  eat  hard  corn,"  as  they  say  in  the 
cavalry.  Jim  began  to  speak  about  his  travels  and  the 
things  he  had  seen,  but  soon  I  noticed  that  his  flow 
of  conversation  was  checked.  It  developed  that  the 
young  Amazon  with  whom  he  went  down  to  dinner 
spent  her  time  in  roaming  about  the  world  like  a  sea 
gypsy,  and  that  her  home  ties  sat  upon  her  as  lightly 
as  they  do  upon  the  nomads  of  the  Kirghiz  steppes. 

Jim's  eyes  grew  big  as  saucers  as  the  young  lady  set 
forth  in  a  loud  voice  her  scheme  of  life.  She  would 
permit  nothing  in  the  world,  she  said,  prevent  her 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  193 

spending  November  and  December  in  Manchuria  tiger- 
shooting,  and  September,  or  the  best  part  of  it,  on  the 
moors  of  Scotland  after  grouse.  These  events  were  the 
two  fixtures  of  the  calendar  with  which  she  would  allow 
nothing  to  interfere.  During  the  rest  of  the  year  she 
was  ready  for  anything  that  turned  up,  and  willing  to 
go  anywhere  with  anybody.  With  a  missionary  lady  of 
her  acquaintance  who  knew  Thibetan,  she  had  made  a 
dash  for  Lhassa,  and  been  turned  back  by  the  Lamas, 
like  every  one  else,  and  she  had  gone  up  the  Mekong 
in  a  flatboat,  and  had  been  the  very  first  woman  who 
wore  clothes  to  visit  Angkor- Wat.  And  then  she  had 
gone  to  the  heart  of  Java  and  taken  snap-shots  of  the 
stone  Buddhas  at  Euro  Budor,  for  which  the  king  of 
Siam  had  rewarded  her  with  the  order  of  the  White 
Elephant.  "And  when  she  talked  about  running 
home,"  said  Jim,  later,  when  he  confided  to  me  some  of 
the  fragments  of  their  dinner  conversation,  "  why,  you 
might  imagine  that  her  home  was  just  across  the 
Hoboken  ferry,  and  not  ten  thousand  miles  away." 

We  were  both  somewhat  depressed  and  not  a  little 
disconcerted  at  the  size  of  the  company  we  found  assem- 
bled ;  we  had  not  come  for  a  "  long  feed,"  though 
this  would  probably  be  our  last  opportunity  for  many 
months.  We  came,  avowedly,  to  "talk  shop,"  as  they 
say  out  here.  In  the  end,  however,  fortune  favored  us, 
or  rather  our  tactful  host,  who,  seeing  what  we  wanted, 
knew  how  to  lead  the  conversation  into  the  channels  we 
desired.  The  talk  fell  upon  the  Philippines,  and  I 
remarked  in  the  somewhat  apologetic  strain,  which  we 


194  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

have  all  begun  to  assume  in  regard  to  recent  events 
over  there,  that  the  problem  had  come  upon  us  when  we 
were  unprepared,  and  that  our  policy  had  been  vacillat- 
ing and  drifting,  only  because  public  opinion  at  home 
had  not  pronounced  decidedly  for  one  solution  or  the 
other  of  the  question.  "  This  is  all  changed  now,  how- 
ever," I  maintained.  "  People  still  disagree  as  to 
whether  we  should  have  gotten  into  the  mess,  and  as  to 
the  course  which  we  should  pursue  when  the  island  is 
pacified,  but  all  important  elements  of  public  opinion 
are  united  on  the  present  policy  of  smashing  the  rebels 
in  the  field  as  quickly  and  as  thoroughly  as  possible." 

"I  am  very  glad  to  hear  that,"  said  Mr.  Aylward; 
"  I  never  allowed  myself  for  a  moment  to  doubt  that 
this  would  be  the  popular  as  well  as  the  official  deci- 
sion, as  soon  as  the  facts  of  the  situation  were  known, 
but  you  are  wrong  in  supposing  for  a  moment  that 
things  have  gone  against  you  so  far.  On  the  contrary, 
we,  who  have  been  watching  the  course  of  events  from 
the  beginning,  are  agreed  in  saying  that  you  have  had 
'  Yankee  luck.' " 

I  am  afraid  I  showed  some  astonishment  at  this,  so 
that  Mr.  Aylward  felt  called  upon  to  enumerate  our 
windfalls  of  good  fortune. 

"  In  the  first  place,"  he  began,  "  the  Tagals  did  not 
attack  you  until  you  not  only  had  a  sufficient  force  on 
the  distant  field  to  hold  your  lines,  but  even  to  advance, 
and  of  course  your  being  able  to  do  so  has  exerted  a 
prodigious  moral  effect,  not  only  upon  the  Tagals,  but 
upon  all  the  other  tribes  that  live  in  the  islands.  It  is 


THE  GOLDEN  ^HORSESHOE  195 

not  remarkable  that  the  other  tribesmen  did  not  join 
Aguinaldo  after  you  had  begun  to  punish  him,  for 
savages  never  rally  to  a  losing  cause ;  but  it  was  a  piece 
of  great  good  fortune  that  they  did  not  make  common 
cause  with  him  against  you  before  the  fighting  began 
and  they  found  out,  as  they  have  now,  that  they  had  to 
deal  with  a  more  capable  and  energetic  foe  than  the 
Spaniard.  My  agent  at  Manila  from  the  very  begin- 
ning of  the  hostilities  has  written  me  that  the  reason 
why  the  Tagals  who  are  in  arms  refuse  to  accept  your 
rule  is,  that  the  leaders  are  men  who,  under  the  Spanish 
regime,  held  paying  positions  in  the  native  army  or  in 
the  civil  administration,  and  that  up  to  the  present  they 
have  not  been  able  to  secure  assurances  from  the  Ameri- 
can commanders  that  in  case  of  an  immediate  surrender 
they  would  be  given  something  else  just  as  good ;  and 
quite  right,  too,  that  was  a  mistake  for  which  the 
Spaniards  paid  dearly  in  the  end. 

"Again,  it  is  the  best  thing  in  the  world  for  you  and 
the  whole  East  that  right  at  the  beginning  the  Tagals 
turned  their  guns  upon  you  rather  than  that  they 
should  have  made  a  sullen  submission.  In  this  case 
you  would  have  had  a  series  of  petty  insurrections  on 
your  hands,  and  permanent  peace  could  not  have 
been  effected  under  twenty  years.  Now  you  have  them 
in  the  field  where  you  can  get  at  them  just  as  soon  as 
the  rains  let  up,  and  don't  forget  when  the  time  comes, 
that  the  peace  which  will  follow  will  be  complete  and 
lasting,  just  in  proportion  as  the  thrashing  you  inflict 
upon  them  is  thorough. 


196  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

"How  lucky  you  have  been  in  other  respects  can 
best  be  shown  by  a  comparison  between  what  occurred 
when  we  took  possession  of  Hong  Kong  and  your  first 
year  in  the  Philippines.  Here  we  got  hold  of  a  clean 
and  uninhabited  island  that  was  reputed  to  be  very 
healthy,  and  we  had  no  enemy  to  contend  with  in  the 
field ;  while  on  the  other  hand  you  had  the  accumulated 
filth  of  ages  from  the  Spaniards,  who  are  the  most 
unsanitary  people  in  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time 
you  came  in  for  a  rebellion  which  was  primarily  directed 
against  them.  Within  a  very  few  weeks  after  we  took 
possession  of  Hong  Kong  the  black  death  and  the 
cholera  were  raging  here,  and  more  than  fifty  per  cent 
of  all  the  people  who  landed  in  the  colony  lost  their 
lives.  You  have  held  Manila  for  a  year  and  you  have 
not  lost  a  man  from  either  of  these  Asiatic  plagues,  and 
the  smallpox,  which  was  endemic  there  for  fifty  years, 
has  been  practically  stamped  out.  This,  of  course,  was 
good  management  and  not  luck.  Then  you  haven't 
had  an  earthquake  to  speak  of,  and  none  of  the  prov- 
inces have  been  flooded  by  tidal  waves,  and  you  haven't 
lost  a  single  ship  in  a  typhoon.  The  number  of  men 
you  have  lost  by  disease  is  incredibly  small  when  you 
compare  it  with  the  cost  of  other  campaigns  in  the 
tropics.  But  remind  me  to  read  you  after  dinner  some 
entries  in  my  father's  diary  as  to  the  early  history  of 
Hong  Kong.  They  will  make  you  appreciate  better 
than  any  words  of  mine  can,  how  favored  by  fortune 
your  occupation  of  the  Philippines  has  been  so  far." 

After  dinner  Jim  declared  without  a  blush  that  he 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  197 

never  smoked  under  any  circumstances,  and  the  last  I 
saw  of  him  he  was  leading  the  much-travelled  maiden 
upon  a  voyage  of  discovery  that  had  for  its  objective 
the  darkest  corner  of  the  veranda.  As  I  saw  the  fool- 
hardy and  wholly  unmasked  advances  which  my  second 
lieutenant  was  making  into  the  enemy's  country,  I 
could  only  hope  that  in  the  breach  of  promise  courts,  as 
in  public  law  and  international  morals,  ante-bellum 
promises  count  for  but  little.  After  showing  the  other 
men  of  the  party  into  the  smoking  room,  Mr.  Aylward 
led  me  into  his  study  to  fulfil  the  promise  he  had  made 
during  dinner. 

"  As  you  perhaps  know,"  he  began,  as  he  opened  a 
despatch  box  and  took  out  of  it  several  manuscript  vol- 
umes bound  in  vellum,  "  my  father  was  the  first  civilian 
to  land  in  Hong  Kong.  I  will  read  you,  from  his  notes 
made  at  the  time,  some  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  the 
colony  in  the  earlier  days.  .  .  .  The  island  was  ceded  to  us 
in  1842  by  the  treaty  which  concluded  what  is  so  unjustly 
called  the  Opium  War.  The  question  at  issue,  then  tem- 
porarily decided  in  our  favor,  was  whether  the  Chinese 
can  be  compelled  to  respect  the  rights  and  privileges  con- 
veyed to  foreigners  by  treaty.  It  had  become  apparent, 
after  many  bitter  and  costly  experiences,  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  carry  on  trade  successfully  and  profitably  with- 
out having  a  port  near  to  China  where  our  vessels  could 
be  refitted  and  our  merchants  enjoy  the  protection  of  the 
flag.  Such  a  port  we  demanded  of  China  as  a  penalty 
and  an  indemnity  for  the  senseless  war  they  had  pro- 
voked. There  was,  of  course,  the  usual  discussion  as  to 


198  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

where  this  port  should  be  located.  To  be  as  little  ob- 
jectionable to  the  Chinese  as  possible,  it  was  understood 
from  the  beginning  that  the  port  in  question  would  not 
be  on  the  mainland.  Some  were  in  favor  of  Chusan, 
the  island  off  the  Yangtze,  others  advanced  the  claims 
of  Formosa,  but  the  government  of  the  day  decided  in 
favor  of  Hong  Kong,  because  it  was  unoccupied,  and 
there  were  no  Chinese  to  be  dispossessed  or  graves  to  be 
disturbed  (this  latter  was  the  rallying  cry  of  the  anti- 
Christians  in  those  days),  and  incidentally  because  it  was 
near  to  Canton,  then  the  greatest  and  almost  the  only 
outlet  of  the  China  trade  upon  the  East  coast. 

"A  month  after  landing  at  Hong  Kong  my  father 
writes :  '  The  Canton  merchants  have  decided  they  will 
have  no  dealings  with  Hong  Kong,  and  the  viceroy  has 
forbidden  coolies  to  come  here  in  search  of  work  under 
pain  of  capital  punishment.  Lord  Derby  announces  in 
the  House  of  Lords  that  we  are  not  to  colonize  the 
island  but  to  utilize  it  for  commercial  and  naval  purposes. 
How  this  is  to  be  done  is  not  at  present  apparent.  No 
business  is  springing  up  and  all  but  two  of  the  hongs 
established  have  gone  into  bankruptcy.' 

"Two  years  later  my  father  makes  this  still  more 
gloomy  entry :  '  The  maintenance  of  the  island  is  cost- 
ing the  government  a  quarter  of  a  million  pounds  ster- 
ling annually,  and  the  receipts  do  not  amount  to  ten 
thousand.  The  Agincourt,  a  cruiser  stationed  here  to 
protect  the  colony  from  the  threatened  attack  of  the 
pirates,  lost  more  than  half  her  crew  from  fever  and 
cholera  in  two  months,  and  is  gone  away.  This  year, 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  199 

1843,  we  had  a  garrison  of  1526  men.  There  have 
been  7900  sick,  or  each  man  has  been,  on  an  average, 
in  the  hospital  five  times.'  In  1844  he  writes:  'The 
Ninety-eighth  Regiment  came  here  fifteen  months  ago 
with  an  effective  of  700  men.  Two  hundred  and 
sixty  have  died  and  not  a  s.core  of  those  who  sur- 
vive are  in  a  condition  to  carry  a  musket,  much  less 
to  enter  upon  a  campaign.  The  commanding  offi- 
cer has  written  home  to  Lord  Fitzroy  Somerset  that  the 
continued  occupation  of  Hong  Kong  will  cost  Her 
Majesty's  Government  a  regiment  every  three  years,' 
and  you  must  remember  there  was  no  fighting,  only 
police  work  for  the  soldiers  to  do. 

"  In  1847  mv  father  writes  :  '  The  outlook  is  better  and 
perhaps  we  can  hope  that  the  worst  to  be  feared  from 
the  ravages  of  the  climate  is  over.  This  year  only 
twenty-four  per  cent  of  the  soldiers  have  died,  and 
about  ten  per  cent  of  the  civilian  population.'  And 
so,"  said  Mr.  Aylward,  closing  the  volume,  "the  entries 
go  on  for  ten  years,  showing  nothing  but  hope  to  live 
upon.  For  twenty  years  it  was  all  outlay  and  nothing 
coming  in,  and  there  were  heard  in  England,  on  every 
side,  much  more  powerful  organs  of  public  opinion 
than  is,  I  take  it,  the  Anti-Imperialist  Society  of  Massa- 
chusetts with  you,  demanding  the  evacuation  of  the 
island,  which  was  denounced  as  utterly  worthless  —  sim- 
ply a  '  white  man's  graveyard.'  The  government  of  the 
day  was  constantly  questioned  in  parliament,  and  the 
leader  of  the  opposition  pronounced  the  retention  of 
the  island  '  an  egregious  blunder  and  one  that,  if  per- 


200  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

sisted  in,  would  border  on  insanity.'  I  don't  think  even 
Mr.  Bryan  has  said  anything  more  sweeping  than  that. 
And  for  ten  years  the  London  Times  thundered  against 
the  colony,  and  its  correspondents  and  editors  made 
sport  of  those  who,  like  my  father,  persisted  in  saying 
that  the  island  was  worth  all  that  it  was  costing  and 
that  it  would  pay  in  the  end.  Although  when  we  took 
possession  it  was  a  worthless  rock,  where,  as  one  elo- 
quent member  of  parliament  said,  only  fevers,  piracy, 
and  cholera  flourished,  we  have  made  of  Hong  Kong  what 
you  see  it  to  be,  and  you  can  do  the  same  with  Manila, 
but  it  may  cost  you  many  lives  and  much  money,  and 
the  American  people  must  make  up  their  minds,  and  do  it 
quickly,  if  they  have  not  done  so  already,  whether  or  not 
in  their  opinion  the  results  which  are  assured  are  worth 
the  initial  cost.  If  you  establish  yourself  in  Manila 
permanently,  we  know  perfectly  well  you  will  prove  a 
dangerous  competitor  for  the  China  trade,  for  then  you 
will  be  able  to  stretch  out  your  hand  upon  an  equal 
footing  with  ourselves,  which  you  have  never  been  able 
to  do  before  because  you  had  no  base  or  local  standing 
on  the  market.  But  we  have  no  fear  of  any  com- 
petitor, and  there  is  room  out  here  for  all  fair  traders. 
What  we  do  fear  is  having  the  markets  closed  against 
us,  but  with  you  in  Manila,  and  with  us  in  Hong  Kong, 
Russia  would  not,  and  a  power  ten  times  stronger  than 
Russia  could  not,  succeed  in  closing  the  ports  of  East 
Asia  to  the  trade  of  the  world.  With  your  cooperation 
the  commerce  of  the  Yellow  Sea  will  soon  be  carried  on 
under  as  civilized  conditions  as  is  the  trade  of  the 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  201 

Mediterranean,  only  this  trade,  once  all  unnatural  re- 
strictions are  removed,  will  become  of  vastly  greater 
importance,  for  through  it  we  shall  reach  a  market  of 
600,000,000  people." 

Much  sooner  than  I  wished,  Mr.  A ,  mindful  of  his 

duties  as  host,  closed  the  pages  of  his  father's  interest- 
ing diary,  and  we  rejoined  the  party  in  the  smoking 
room.  Here,  in  a  very  few  moments,  a  discussion  de- 
veloped as  to  the  future  of  the  tropics  and  the  part 
which  the  present  inhabitants  of  the  temperate  zones 
will  play  in  their  development.  Some  one,  I  think 
it  was  the  travelling  M.  P.,  or  the  under  secretary 
of  state  en  tour,  set  the  ball  rolling  by  expressing  a 
certain  curiosity  (and  in  my  eyes  this  stamped  him  im- 
mediately as  an  Englishman  of  an  unusual  type)  to 
know  what  the  political  map  of  East  Asia  would  look 
like  a  hundred  years  hence.  What  will  be  Russian, 
and  what  British,  where  will  the  Japanese  Empire  end, 
and  what  part  are  the  Americans  to  play  in  Asiatic 
affairs,  were  questions,  he  said,  he  would  like  very 
much  to  have  answered  by  those  best  acquainted  with 
the  present  conditions. 

To  my  surprise  the  chief  justice  entered  into  the 
discussion  without  the  slighest  reserve.  He  apportioned 
out  territory,  made  and  unmade  kings  and  emperors  as 
though  they  had  been  prisoners  at  the  bar.  Then  draw- 
ing a  map  of  this  most  interesting  part  of  the  world 
upon  a  scrap  of  paper,  he  began  :  — 

"  Prophecy  is  a  dangerous  profession,  but  as  I  shall 
have  left  the  woolsack  and  probably  this  world  before 


202  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

my  prophecies  fall  due,  I  am  going  to  tell  you  what 
I  think  East  Asia  will  look  like  after  the  conference 
of  world  powers  at  Washington  has  reached  the  con- 
clusion of  its  labors,  which  will  be,  I  think,  toward  the 
end  of  the  year  1906.  That  will  be  an  epoch-making 
congress  in  the  history  of  diplomacy  and  the  develop- 
ment of  public  law.  Often  before  the  great  powers 
have  met  to  decide  the  fate  of  a  single  country,  but 
never  have  they  been  convened  to  sit  upon  the  political 
corpus,  as  it  were,  of  a  whole  continent.  Ah,  yes, 
I  remember  the  bull  of  Alexander  VI,  but  after  all, 
you  know,  that  was  an  edict  and  only  on  paper."  Then 
he  divided  his  map  into  sections,  one  of  which  he  called 
British,  the  other  Russian,  and  the  last,  but  not  the 
least  in  size,  American.  And  China  —  well,  as  far  as  I 
could  see,  China  was  nowhere,  and  Germany  but  a  drop 
in  the  bucket. 

"  Wonderful  as  is  the  spectacle  which  the  east  coast 
of  Asia  presents  to-day  to  the  eyes  of  the  observer,"  he 
went  on  to  say,  "  it  does  not  indicate  at  all  a  new  phase 
in  the  world's  history,  and  again  we  must  confess  with 
regret  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun.  The 
condition  of  unrest,  that  state  of  fermentation  which 
prevails  here  to-day  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
corresponds  with  the  condition  of  affairs  along  the 
North  American  coast  toward  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  After  all  it  is  only  another  round,  as  it 
were,  in  the  inevitable  struggle  between  the  superior 
and  the  inferior  races  for  the  possession  of  the  earth, 
with  an  inside  fight  going  on  between  the  superior 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  203 

powers  as  to  which  shall  attain  the  greatest  colonial 
and  commercial  efficiency.  To-day  it  is  clear  that  the 
future  belongs  to  the  large  and  the  powerful  state.  The 
day  of  the  little  compact  and  self-contained  states,  how- 
ever high  their  social  efficiency  may  be,  is  over.  People 
who  thunder  against  the  natural  and  inevitable  expan- 
sion of  the  world  powers  close  their  eyes  tight  to  the 
fact  that  the  conditions  of  life  are  different  from  what 
they  were  when  the  arguments  that  they  still  use  gained 
and  deserved  a  respectful  hearing.  Even  in  France, 
short-sighted  and  emotional  as  we  may  think  French- 
men to  be,  for  the  most  part,  there  lives  a  seer,  M. 
Paul  Leroy  Beaulieu,  who  writes  :  — 

"  '  Early  in  the  twentieth  century  France  will  have 
upon  one  side  of  her  120,000,000  Russians  about  to 
expand  into  the  temperate  regions  of  Siberia,  and  on 
the  other  side  120,000,000  English-speaking  peoples 
about  to  expand  into  a  vast  inheritance  in  the  temperate 
regions  of  the  world.  Therefore,  colonization  is  for 
France  the  question  of  life  or  death.  Either  France 
must  become  a  great  African  power,  or  she  will  become, 
in  a  century  or  two,  but  a  second-rate  European  power, 
and  will  count  for  no  more  in  the  world  than  Greece  or 
Roumania  do  to-day.' 

"  The  only  trouble  is  that  no  amount  of  intelligent 
insight  and  foreshadowing  of  coming  events,  such  as 
this  Frenchman  has  given  evidence  of,  will  help  his 
country  to  become  a  colonial  power,  and  therefore  a 
world  power,  when  their  instincts  and  the  genius  of 
their  institutions  are  all  against  it.  To  my  mind  there 


204  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

are  only  three  world  powers  to-day  :  Russia,  the  United 
States,  and  Great  Britain.  The  policy  of  Russia,  while 
it  certainly  is  admirable  in  many  respects,  especially  in 
regard  to  the  treatment  of  the  savage  races,  promises 
to  become  utterly  disastrous  to  the  commercial  and 
other  vested  interests  of  the  Western  powers  in  the  mar- 
kets of  the  East.  To  my  mind,  if  the  English-speak- 
ing people  are  agreed  that  no  markets  which  have  once 
been  opened  are  to  be  closed  to  them,  if  they  are 
agreed  that  these  still  unproductive  portions  of  the 
world  must  be  opened  up  and  developed  as  a  trust 
imposed  by  civilization  for  the  benefit  of  posterity,  it  is 
now  high  time  to  act.  We  must  bear  in  mind  the 
wonderful  colonial  expansion  of  certain  continental 
powers  during  the  last  three  decades,  in  which  nearly 
5,000,000  square  miles  of  territory  have  been  brought 
under  their  control  and  fenced  around  with  walls  in 
which  there  is  no  open  door  for  our  trade.  We  have 
only  to  remember  what  has  happened  in  Algeria  and 
Tunis,  and  the  recent  behavior  of  the  Russians  in  their 
Yellow  Sea  ports,  to  know  what  this  means.1  It  means 
that  these  5,000,000  square  miles  of  the  world's  surface 
are  a  closed  market  to  the  products  of  our  industry  and 
our  commerce.  To  cap  the  climax,  only  yesterday  I 

1  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  the  Imperial  Russian  Government  is  pledged 
to  the  opening  of  Talien-Wan,  the  ultimate  terminus  of  the  Trans-Siberian 
Railroad,  as  a  free  port,  open  to  all  comers  and  without  any  restrictions 
upon  trade  whatsoever.  In  the  Far  East,  however,  merchants  by  bitter 
experience  have  learned  that  even  the  most  solemn  pledges  of  Russia,  as 
well  as  of  several  other  powers,  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  having  binding 
force. — THE  EDITOR. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  205 

was  reading  in  a  paper  the  announcement  that  a  ukase 
has  recently  been  promulgated  by  the  Russian  Czar 
to  the  effect  that  after  January  i,  1903,  when  it  is 
expected  that  the  Trans-Siberian  and  their  other  great 
railways  will  be  completed,  the  products  of  foreign 
nations  will  not  be  admitted  at  all  to  the  Russian 
ports  in  the  Baltic  and  upon  the  Pacific  unless  they  are 
brought  in  Russian  bottoms. 

"  You  Americans  are  selling  to-day  about  $40,000,000 
worth  of  goods  in  the  market  of  the  Far  East.  You 
sell  $8,000,000  or  $10,000,000  worth  of  cotton  goods 
alone  in  Manchuria,  but  that  market  will  be  lost  to  you 
the  moment  Russia  asserts  her  influence  and  openly 
dominates  all  Northern  China,  as  she  does  to-day  in 
point  of  fact.  The  trade  of  the  Philippines,  which 
will  soon  be  entirely  in  your  hands,  even  under  Spain, 
which,  from  a  commercial  standpoint,  is  simply  a  bar- 
barous nation,  amounted  to  $31,000,000  in  1896.  Under 
the  conditions  of  fair  treatment,  and  the  preservation 
of  law  and  order,  which  you  mean  to  establish,  this 
trade  cannot  fail,  in  the  opinion  of  the  most  conserva- 
tive critics,  to  reach  $100,000,000,  and  of  course  I  am 
merely  referring  to  the  expansion  of  the  present  trade 
in  the  natural  products  of  the  islands  which  the  Span- 
iards, with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  could  not  alto- 
gether prevent.  I  do  not  refer  to  the  mineral  wealth 
and  other  latent  resources  of  the  islands  which  you 
will  develop,  because  up  to  the  present  they  have  been 
jealously  guarded,  and  their  extent  and  value  are  little 
known. 


zo6  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

"  To-day  as  America  enters  the  field  a  world  power, 
not  at  all  because  you  want  her  to,  but  simply  because 
your  country  is  too  large  to  keep  off  the  broader  stage, 
you  will  find  that  much  of  the  waste  land  of  the  world, 
or  that  which  is  only  occupied  by  the  inferior  races,  has 
come  into  the  nominal  possession,  at  least,  of  powers 
which  have  never  colonized  successfully,  whose  people 
will  never  develop  these  unworked  estates,  arid  whose 
governments  will  prevent  Englishmen  and  Americans 
from  doing  so,  or  at  all  events  that  is  their  programme. 
You  will  also  find  in  the  East  that  the  future  depends 
upon  the  success  or  failure  of  Russia  or  Great  Britain 
in  the  realization  of  their  respective  national  policies, 
which  have  become  world-wide  in  their  application.  As 
you  know,  Great  Britain  stands  out  here,  and  every- 
where else,  for  the  'open  door,'  and  a  trade  that  is 
free  and  unhampered.  Russia  stands  for  the  closed 
door,  and  an  expansion  which,  in  its  commercial  aspects 
at  least,  is  simply  self-aggrandizement. 

"  Once  this  proposition  is  presented  and  thoroughly 
understood,  to  my  mind  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt 
but  that  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  will  stand, 
commercially  at  least,  shoulder  to  shoulder  in, the  Far- 
East.  There  are  other  and  higher  reasons  why  they 
should  do  so.  But  there  is  one ;  I  think  Mr.  Lowell  was 
the  first  to  see  it,  and  he  thought  it  a  remarkably 
cogent  one.  I  do  not  remember  exactly  how  he  put  it, 
but  his  view  of  the  situation  was  that  America  and 
England,  standing  together,  can  and  will  rule  the  world 
according  to  the  law  and  the  word  of  the  English  race, 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  207 

but  once  they  are  divided  the  world   may  rule  them 
according  to  its  pleasure. 

"  I  have  read  a  great  deal  in  your  newspapers  lately 
about  the  unwisdom  of  departing  from  the  policy  laid 
down  in  the  beginning  by  the  founders  of  the  Republic, 
and  I  confess  that  all  these  wise  saws  and  axioms, 
which  you  are  expected  to  listen  to  reverently  and  with 
bated  breath,  would  be  worthy  of  the  closest  attention 
if  the  world  had  not  been  transformed  since  they  were 
spoken,  the  conditions  of  your  national  existence  wholly 
changed,  and  if  we  had  any  reason  to  believe  that  in 
spite  of  these  changed  conditions  the  founders  of  the  Re- 
public would  still  lend  the  great  weight  of  their  authority 
to  the  policies  which  they  advocated  a  century  ago.  At 
the  time  of  their  activity  you  must  remember  they  were  op- 
portunists, availing  themselves  of  the  advantages  of  their 
geographical  situation  with  sagacity,  and  facing  the  diffi- 
culties of  it  with  courage.  They  would  act  in  the  same 
way  to-day,  and  so  will,  I  am  sure,  their  descendants. 
It  isn't  possible  to-day  even  for  the  Chinese  to  remain 
behind  their  wall  and  maintain  their  former  isolation, 
much  less  for  America,  because  by  the  natural  progress 
of  events,  the  inevitable  course  of  destiny,  the  United 
States  has  become  a  world  power,  and  Europe  is  only 
five  or  six  days  distant  from  your  Atlantic  coast,  where 
it  used  to  be  three  months,  and  Asia,  which  formerly 
you  had  to  sail  all  round  the  world  to  get  to,  is  now 
your  neighbor  across  the  Pacific,  and  for  all  practical 
purposes  as  near  to  you  to-day  as  France  was  to  Eng- 
land at  the  time  of  the  Black  Prince. 


208  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

"  I  can  only  consider  it  a  great  good  fortune,  both 
for  you  and  the  world  at  large,  that  the  United  States 
has  become  a  world  power,  with  world-wide  responsi- 
bilities and  opportunities,  at  such  a  propitious  moment. 
Had  there  been  simply  the  delay  of  a  generation  you 
would  have  come  into  the  world  too  late  for  the  com- 
plete realization  of  what  is  evidently  the  rdle  you  are 
destined  to  play. 

"  I  cannot  but  see  the  irony  of  fate  when  I  recall  the 
titanic  efforts  which  Germany  has  been  making  for  the 
last  twenty  years  to  secure  that  position  in  the  world 
and  those  possessions  which  have  come  to  you  as  the 
wholly  unexpected  result  of  a  well-nigh  bloodless  war. 
Bismarck  might  say,  as  he  did,  that  he  would  not  give 
the  bones  of  one  of  his  Pomeranian  Grenadiers  for  all 
the  over-sea  colonies  in  the  world,  and  I  would  be 
entirely  of  his  way  of  thinking  if  he  had  limited  the 
scope  of  his  remarks  to  the  German  colonies  in  Africa. 
But  in  opposing  the  colonial  aspirations  of  his  country- 
men, Bismarck  only  showed  how  narrow-minded  and 
short-sighted  he  was,  once  removed  from  the  sphere  of 
action  in  which  he  was  born  and  in  which  he  so  greatly 
distinguished  himself.  Germany  to-day  is  practically 
unanimous  as  to  the  necessity  of  finding  suitable  colo- 
nies for  its  overflow  population,  so  that  the  German  ele- 
ment may  not  become  submerged  in  the  flood  of  aliens 
under  whose  flag  they  live.  Fearful  of  subsiding  into 
a  power  of  only  continental  and  not  world-wide  impor- 
tance, the  Germans  have  searched  the  world  over  for 
territory  suitable  to  become  the  scene  of  their  expan- 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  209 

sion,  that  'Greater  Germany'  of  which  you  hear  so 
much  in  their  papers  and  debates,  but  which  as  yet  you 
can  find  traced  on  no  map. 

"The  Germans  have  become  rather  disgusted  with 
the  African  continent,  owing  to  the  utter  failure  of 
their  colonies  there,  and  latterly,  as  you  know,  they 
have  turned  their  attention  to  East  Asia,  and,  curi- 
ously enough,  to  South  America.  Indeed,  quite  re- 
cently there  was  published  an  official  letter  of  a 
German  diplomatist,  in  which  he  suggested  that  the  po- 
litical conditions  existing  in  some  of  the  South  Ameri- 
can republics  made  them  extremely  suitable  fields  for 
the  expansion  of  '  Greater  Germany.'  Evidently  this 
Metternich  had  neither  read  the  Monroe  Doctrine  nor 
Webster's  Hiilseman  note,  and  was  unaware  of  the 
experiences  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  Out  here  in  East 
Asia  Germany  wanted  Formosa  badly,  and  Japan  got 
it.  Then  she  set  covetous  eyes  upon  the  Philippines, 
and  they  came  into  your  possession,  rather  against  your 
will  than  otherwise,  and  it  was  this  second  disappoint- 
ment, of  course,  which  inspired  Admiral  Diederich  to 
behave  in  the  childish  way  he  did  at  Manila. 

"  One  of  the  most  curious  phenomena  of  the  day,  I 
think,  is  the  fact  that  just  in  proportion  as  the  superior 
races  who  go  far  afield  bring  into  the  world  large  areas 
which  have  long  lain  fallow,  the  smaller  and  more 
crowded  the  world  becomes.  This  is,  of  course,  because 
of  the  extraordinary  development  of  travel  and  facilities 
of  communication  which  distinguish  this  period.  We 
have  come  to  speak  of  the  British  Empire  as  being 


zio  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

scattered  all  over  the  world  from  end  to  end,  and  yet  it 
is  a  fact  which  some  of  our  statesmen  and  most  of  our 
critics  might  bear  in  mind  with  advantage,  that  we  have 
to-day  no  possession  so  difficult  to  reach  and  so  with- 
drawn from  easy  communication  as  was  our  Duchy  of 
Guienne,  just  across  the  channel,  during  the  time 
of  the  Plantagenets.  Before  leaving  the  Germans 
to  stew  in  their  own  juice  I  want  to  say  that  I  only 
wish  they  could  find  a  colonial  outlet,  so  convinced 
am  I  that  their  unsatisfied  aspirations  in  this  direction 
are  a  menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world.  Some  day, 
perhaps,  by  an  arrangement  with  Holland,  an  arrange- 
ment in  which  the  '  mailed  fist '  will  figure,  Germany 
may  take  over  her  East  Indian  possessions,  Java,  Suma- 
tra, Borneo  etc.,  but  I  am  not  sure  of  it,  the  Dutch  are 
so  very  tenacious.  When  they  get  their  colonial  empire 
it  will  be  the  better  for  the  peace  of  the  world  at  large, 
but  not  for  that  quarter  of  the  world  in  which  '  Greater 
Germany '  will  be  situated,  for  I  hold  that  the  Germans 
have  uniformly  failed  as  pioneers  as  invariably  as 
they  have  succeeded  as  small  traders  and  colonists, 
when,  the  work  of  the  pioneer  had  been  done  for  them. 
I  have  also  been  struck  by  those  Americans  who 
say :  '  Well,  I  am  for  continental  expansion.  Let's 
go  to  the  north  or  let's  go  to  the  south ;  but  I  am, 
on  conviction,  against  over-sea  colonies,  and  I  don't 
think  our  flag  should  fly  over  any  place  you  cannot 
reach  by  the  railroad.'  One  might  well  imagine  that 
these  good  people  have  just  awakened  from  a  long, 
long  sleep  which  had  certainly  not  quickened  their  per- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  211 

ceptions,  for  it  is  the  land  that  separates,  and  the  seas 
that  bind  and  bring  people  closer  together,  and  old  Sir 
James  Harrington  foresaw  the  secondary  importance 
of  land  communication  even  before  the  railway  was 
dreamed  of.  This  is  often  called  the  Railway  Age,  and 
justly  so,  I  think.  Never  again  will  the  railways  cut 
such  an  important  figure,  never  have  there  been  so  many 
miles  of  steel  rail  laid  down  as  recently  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  trans-continental  roads  in  the  United  States, 
the  Canadian  Pacific,  and  the  Trans-Caspian,  and  the 
Trans-Siberian  in  Asia.  But  in  spite  of  this  great  and 
unprecedented  expansion  of  the  railway  systems  of  the 
world  to-day,  the  sea-going  trade  of  the  world,  that  which 
is  carried  in  ships,  continues  to  increase  greatly  over 
that  which  is  carried  in  cars.  The  ocean  brings  together, 
and  does  not  divide  as  it  did  in  the  centuries  which  are 
closed,  except  for  a  few  dreamers  who  linger  '  superflu- 
ous upon  the  scene.'  Thanks  to  this  fact,  never  was  the 
strength  and  power  of  the  British  Empire  more  central- 
ized than  it  is  to-day,  and  an  illustration  of  this  truth, 
and  a  forerunner  on  a  small  scale  of  what  will  happen 
on  a  much  larger  one,  should  ever  the  necessity  for  it 
arise,  is  to  be  found  in  the  way  in  which  our  imperial 
authorities,  in  the  attempt  to  rescue  Gordon,  put  Austra- 
lian and  Canadian  volunteers  on  the  field  in  Egypt  much 
more  quickly  than  Queen  Elizabeth  could  have  brought 
troops  up  to  London  from  Yorkshire.1 

1  The  speed  with  which  the  very  considerable  volunteer  contingents 
from  Canada  and  Australia  have  reached  the  Cape  to  take  part  in  the 
Transvaal  war  is  a  more  recent  illustration  of  this  fact.  — THE  EDITOR. 


212  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

"After  the  North  American  colonies  secured  their 
independence  the  English  Government,  and  in  fact  the 
English  people  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  French 
philosopher,  Turgot  was  his  name,  who  said  that  as  soon 
as  colonies  are  ripe  they  drop  from  the  mother  tree,  was 
a  true  prophet.  Evidently,  then,  the  creation  and  the 
nourishing  of  a  colonial  empire  was  a  thankless  task, 
and  it  was  decided  as  best  for  all  parties  concerned  to 
let  the  colonies  shift  for  themselves.  To  pave  the  way 
for  the  separation  that  was  looked  "upon  as  inevitable 
and  merely  a  question  of  time,  the  classic  policy  of 
exploiting  the  colonies  was  discarded  and  the  era  of  fair 
treatment,  leading  as  it  was  then  thought  it  would  to  a 
friendly  separation,  was  inaugurated.  It  was  an  under- 
stood thing  that  any  colony  that  wanted  to  go  could  go 
and  that  England  was  prepared  to  say,  '  God  bless  you, 
my  children !  Only  remember  when  you  have  made 
money  and  want  to  spend  it,  to  come  back  to  the  old 
shop.'  But  under  this  policy,  naturally  enough,  though 
it  was  a  great  surprise  doubtless  to  those  who  had 
formulated  it,  the  colonies  prospered  mightily,  and  now 
we  are  beginning  to  see  that  colonial  possessions  are 
not  only  a  strength  in  time  of  war,  but  that  they  are 
the  blood  and  sinew  of  many  of  our  industries  in  time 
of  peace. 

"  To  be  frank,  I  hold  that  we  owe  at  once  the  sugges- 
tion and  the  development  of  this  policy,  which  has  made 
of  England  the  great  world  power  that  she  is,  to  the  les- 
son taught  us  by  the  North  American  colonies.  There 
are,  I  know,  statesmen  in  England  to-day  who  never  look 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  213 

upon  the  map  of  North  America  without  howling  with 
rage  and  bursting  out  into  anathema  against  George  III., 
Lord  North,  an$  the  rest  of  them.  I  am  not  entirely 
of  this  opinion,  and  I  think  that  we  owe  to  this  king 
and  his  unfortunate  statesmen,  jointly  with  the  signers 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  most  profitable 
lesson  that  we  have  ever  learned.  They  taught  us,  to 
begin '  with,  that  the  day  was  past  when  men  of  Eng- 
lish blood  could  be  ruled  over  according  to  the  methods 
introduced  by  the  Romans  in  their  conquered  provinces, 
and  we  learned  the  lesson  in  time  to  retain  the  rest  of  our 
colonies.  But,  for  a  time,  they  were  very  little  good  to 
us ;  indeed,  they  were  sources  of  weakness.  We  did  not 
know  how  to  utilize  them  or  how  to  govern  them  in  a 
way  that  was  just  to  them  and  fair  to  us,  until  we  learned 
it  in  studying  your  federal  and  representative  system 
of  government.  This  being  indisputably  the  case,  how 
strangely  it  sounds  to  hear  some  Americans,  who  are 
undoubtedly  inspired  by  conscientious  motives,  say  that 
the-American  system  is  not  suitable  for  the  government 
of  colonies !  Why,  we  never  had  a  task  as  difficult  or  a 
province,  practically  if  not  actually,  as  distant  from  the 
seat  of  our  government  as  you  had  when  you  took  over 
Louisiana  and  its  mixed  population  of  hostile  French 
and  Spaniards  and  negroes  and  Indians;  and  where  we 
have  succeeded,  it  has  been  by  adapting  the  methods 
and  the  machinery  which  you,  with  your  genius  for  gov- 
ernment, improvised  to  meet  this  emergency.  So  while 
others  deplore  the  fact  that  the  American  colonies  sepa- 
rated from  the  mother  country,  I  find  some  consolation 


2i4  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

in  the  thought  that  had  they  not  done  so,  the  British 
Empire  would  not  exist  in  the  shape  and  form  that  it 
does  to-day." 

Then,  by  natural  gravitation,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  the 
conversation  turned  upon  the  future  of  the  tropics.  Upon 
this  subject  the  discussion,  at  times,  waxed  fast  and  furi- 
ous. But  as  the  chief  justice  won  out  hands  down 
through  it  all,  and  as  to  him  were  conceded  all  the 
honors  of  the  impromptu  debate,  I  shall  confine  myself 
to  endeavoring  to  place  before  you  what  his  views  are. 

"The  struggle  for  colonial  supremacy,"  he  began, 
"  which  was  the  underlying  motive  of  nearly,  if  not  all, 
the  wars  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries, 
with  the  possession  of  unoccupied  lands  in  the  temper- 
ate zone  as  their  objective,  has  been  overwhelmingly 
decided  in  favor  of  the  English-speaking  peoples.  We 
can  say  to-day  that  practically  the  white  man's  lands 
are  in  a  high  state  of  cultivation.  Some  social  econo- 
mists maintain  that  now  we  must  proceed  to  the  con- 
quest of  the  tropics.  Others  with  equal  authority,  Jhat 
we  should  let  well  enough  alone  and  stay  where  we  are 
well  off.  To  me  it  seems  that  our  personal  feelings 
and  inclinations  will  have  very  little  influence  in  shaping 
our  course  in  the  future.  We  did  not  bring  into 
cultivation  the  unworked  lands  of  the  temperate  zone 
because  they  were  eyesores,  or  because  we  had  a 
farmer's  pride  in  seeing  all  the  country  round  about 
us  look  well,  but  simply  because  we  were  compelled 
to  do  it  by  the  exigencies  of  that  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, the  international  struggle  for  existence  — as  I 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  215 

call  it  —  which  is  daily  growing  sharper.  The  needs  and 
the  increasing  numbers  of  the  superior  races  require  the 
usufruct  of  the  tropics,  and  this,  I  take  it,  is  the  reason 
why  the  tropics  will  soon  be  conquered  and  the  present 
savage  inhabitants  brought  under  civilized  control. 

"  The  one  sphere  of  commercial  activity  which  is  to- 
day in  its  infancy  is  the  interchange  of  products  between 
the  tropical  and  the  temperate  regions.  This  is  not 
only  the  business  of  the  future,  but  constitutes,  to  an  ex- 
tent almost  unsuspected,  one  of  the  great  trades  of  to-day. 
The  wealth  of  the  tropics  has  proved  sufficient  incentive 
during  the  last  quarter  of  this  century  to  induce  a  great 
number  of  our  merchants  and  our  traders  and  men  of 
the  planter  class  as  well,  to  take  up  their  residence  in 
the  torrid  zones.  They  have  done  this  in  sufficient 
numbers  to  excite  in  some  minds  dire  apprehension  as 
to  the  future  of  these  wandering  tribes  of  our  race.  Sad- 
visaged  men  clad  in  sombre  black  have  been  heard  from, 
pointing  out  the  certain  ruin  which  will  overtake  our 
race  if  we  persist  in  this  course  which  is  so  contrary  to 
nature,  as  they  think.  There  is  nothing  new  in  what 
they  say,  and  it  has  all  been  threshed  over  a  hundred 
times  ;  only  these  good  people,  being  ignorant  of  history, 
as  well  as  of  many  other  important  subjects,  do  not 
know  about  it.  The  same  warnings  were  uttered  with 
equal  emphasis  when  the  colonization  of  America,  of 
Australia,  and  of  South  Africa  began,  and  the  achieve- 
ments of  these  great  commonwealths  to-day  show  the 
utter  fallacy  of  the  ancient  bugaboos.  Some  say  that 
the  colonization  of  the  tropics  is  more  difficult  than  that 


216  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

of  the  temperate  zones ;  that  the  climate  is  more  danger- 
ous to  our  race  as  at  present  constituted.  Certainly  the 
change  is  sharper,  but  owing  to  the  advance  of  science  I 
believe  that  the  colonization  of  the  tropics  will  not  entail 
as  great  a  sacrifice  of  human  life  as  did  the  occupation  of 
the  temperate  zones  during  the  last  century.  No,  the 
habitat  of  the  white  man  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  the 
world !  The  individual  may  go  to  the  wall,  and  many 
will  doubtless  not  survive  the  physical  ordeal  of  the  pro- 
cess of  acclimation,  but  the  race  will,  just  the  same  as  it 
did  when  transplanted  to  Australia,  and  to  America,  and 
to  South  Africa.  When  we  consider  what  these  great 
commonwealths  beyond  the  sea  have  cost  England  in 
lives  and  in  treasure  we  should  strike  a  balance  between 
the  past  of  suffering  and  the  present  of  prosperity,  and 
we  shall  find  that  the  losses  constitute  the  tribute  money 
or  the  '  footing '  which  man  has  always  to  pay  when  he 
opens  up  a  plantation  of  his  estate  —  the  earth  —  which 
has  long  been  left  idle. 

"  To  my  mind  nearly  the  whole  coast  of  East  Asia  is 
suitable  for  the  residence  of  white  men.  It  will  cost  at 
first,  no  doubt,  heavily  in  human  lives,  but  not  more 
heavily  than  did  some  colonies  which  now  enjoy  a 
world-wide  reputation  as  health  resorts.  The  Russians 
on  the  north,  the  French  in  Indo-China,  the  Dutch  in 
the  East  Indies,  and  the  British  everywhere  are  pay- 
ing this  tribute,  and  yet  I  see  no  sign  from  any  of  them 
of  a  desire  to  relinquish  their  projects  and  to  turn  over 
the  continent  to  the  inferior  races." 

"I  agree  with  you  with  regard  to  the  East  Coast 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  217 

being  a  suitable  residence  for  the  white  man,"  said  Mr. 
Aylward,  "  only  to  a  certain  extent,  say  from  the  Amoor 
as  far  south  as  the  Yangtze,  including  Eastern  Siberia, 
Corea,  Manchuria,  and  all  Northern  China,  but  not  as 
concerns  the  tropics ;  we  must  devise  some  means  by 
which  they  can  be  made  to  yield  their  wealth  and 
treasure  without  necessitating  the  presence  of  a  large 
white  population." 

"I  deny  that  absolutely,"  said  the  chief  justice  em- 
phatically. "  Our  people  who  come  out  here  are  very 
careful  of  themselves,  and  perhaps  wisely  so.  Some- 
times when  I  hear  them  talking  after  dinner,  I  think  I 
am  in  a  sanitarium  where  every  man  has  some  organic 
disease.  They  are  forever  hurrying  home  or  running 
across  to  Japan  for  the  summer,  and  perhaps  as  they 
are  able  to  do  so  it  is  well,  as  their  caution  reduces  the 
cost  in  human  life  of  getting  control  of  these  new  regions 
to  a  minimum ;  but  I  assure  you  this  is  not  necessary. 
Just  look  at  the  Dutch  in  Java !  Do  you  ever  hear  of 
them  going  home  for  a  change  of  air  ?  Hardly.  The 
Dutch  planters  rarely  or  never  go  to  Europe.  The  fami- 
lies of  many  of  them  have  been  settled  in  Java  for  eight 
or  ten  generations,  and  they  are  splendid  looking  men. 
The  Dutch  civil  servants,  if  they  want  to,  can  go  home 
once  every  fifteen  years  of  their  service,  but  of  course 
when  a  man  has  lived  uninterruptedly  in  the  East 
Indies  for  fifteen  years,  he  doesn't  want  to  go  home 
particularly,  one  by  one  the  members  of  his  family 
have  died  and  the  home  ties  are  weakened.  I  maintain 
that  the  east  coast  of  Asia  is  as  suitable  for  the  coloni- 


2i8  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

zation  of  the  European  as  far  south  as  the  Yangtze  as 
was  the  Atlantic  coast  of  America  down  to  the  Caro- 
linas.  South  of  the  Carolinas,  and  south  of  the  Yangtze 
special  conditions  prevail,  but  they  will  be  overcome. 
Georgia  and  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  all  your  gulf 
states,  in  fact,  support  a  large  and  vigorous  population. 
White  farm  labor  is  carried  on  as  well  in  Central  and 
South  America,  in  tropical  Australia,  and  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  the  white 
man,  especially  the  Anglo-American,  should  not  become 
acclimated  in  the  tropics  of  East  Asia ;  in  fact,  it  is  no 
longer  a  problem ;  there  is  already  a  large  white  planter 
class  in  the  states  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  who  lead  quite 
as  comfortable  and  as  healthy  lives  as  do  the  cotton 
growers  of  Georgia  and  Alabama.  It  is  all  in  getting 
accustomed  to  the  new  conditions  and  acting  prudently 
while  doing  so.  When  I  came  out  here  forty  years  ago,  a 
man's  life  in  Hong  Kong  was  not  thought  to  be  worth  five 
years'  purchase.  The  colony  was  known  as  the  '  White 
Man's  Graveyard.'  How  different  it  is  to-day,  when  the 
longevity  of  Europeans  who  live  in  China  is  almost 
proverbial,  and  all  life  insurance  companies  are  only 
too  anxious  to  secure  them  as  clients,  especially  after 
they  have  been  in  residence  out  here  two  or  three  years. 
All  that  is  wanting  is  a  knowledge  of  the  science  of  life 
in  the  tropics.  Mr.  Chamberlain,  the  secretary  of  state 
for  the  colonies,  has  understood  this,  and  in  founding 
in  London  a  medical  institute  for  the  study  of  tropical 
diseases  and  the  collection  of  all  data  bearing  upon  this 
subject,  he  has  made  a  splendid  move  in  the  right  direc- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  219 

tion.  When  white  men  first  came  out  here,  they  were 
doctored  as  they  would  have  been  at  home,  and  this  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  the  high  rate  of  mortality  during 
the  earlier  years.  Gradually,  however,  a  doctor  would 
learn  by  experience  —  for  which,  in  the  meantime,  his 
patients  often  paid  with  their  lives  —  and  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  act  intelligently.  When  such  a  practitioner 
died,  however — colonial  medical  men  not  being  gener- 
ally men  of  scientific  attainments  —  their  knowledge  was 
too  often  buried  with  them.  Now,  however,  under  the 
auspices  of  this  institute  the  study  of  the  conditions  of  life 
in  the  tropics  is  to  be  pursued  in  a  systematic  way,  and 
the  result  will  be,  I  am  sure,  that  the  coming  generation, 
upon  whom  the  duty  devolves  of  taking  possession  of 
the  tropics,  will  enter  upon  the  task  clad  in  an  armor 
less  vulnerable  than  that  which  the  followers  of  Cortez 
and  Pizarro  wore.  Now,  it  is  upon  the  world  powers 
that  the  moral  obligation  and  the  material  necessity  to 
develop  the  tropics  devolves.  To  this  there  are  some 
people  who  say  —  I  think  because  in  their  secret  hearts 
they  are  ashamed  of  their  idle  lives,  spent  wholly  en- 
veloped in  cotton-wool :  — 

" '  Oh,  these  people,  these  savages  of  the  tropics,  were 
much  better  off  before  we  came  to  trouble  them,  and 
shall  be  again  if  we  only  leave  them  alone.  They  only 
acquire  our  vices  and  never  our  virtues,  and  it  is  much 
the  best  policy  both  for  us  and  for  them  to  let  them 
work  out  their  salvation  in  their  own  way.' 

"This  is  one  of  those  statements  which  would  be 
interesting  if  true.  To  prove  the  absurdity  of  it  one 


220  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

has  only  to  review  the  present  condition  and  the 
recent  history  of  the  islands  of  Australasia  and  the 
Malay  Archipelago.  The  people  of  these  islands  can 
be  divided  into  three  distinct  classes.  Where  they 
have  fallen  under  the  control  of  a  European  power, 
with  colonial  and  administrative  ability,  you  will  find 
them  as  they  are  in  Java,  quite  happy,  well  fed,  and 
increasing  rapidly  in  population.  The  islanders  are 
not  so  happy  nor  so  peaceful,  and  the  population  is 
invariably  at  a  standstill,  where  they  have  come  under 
the  control  of  a  power  of  low  colonial  efficiency;  for 
an  example,  observe  the  result  of  Portuguese  rule  in 
Timor ;  but  where  the  islanders  have  been  left,  as  in 
Borneo  and  in  New  Guinea,  and  in  some  of  the  smaller 
islands,  almost  entirely  to  their  own  devices,  they  are 
wretchedly  wanting  in  all  material  prosperity,  utterly 
savage  in  all  their  habits,  and,  fortunately  for  all  con- 
cerned, are  fast  disappearing  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 
"  Let  us  draw,  at  considerable  length,  a  parallel  be- 
tween the  experiences  of  the  Dutch  in  Java  and  the 
Spaniards  in  Luzon.  To  my  mind  it  furnishes  one  of 
the  most  instructive  lessons  of  colonial  history.  When- 
ever I  look  at  what  Holland  has  accomplished  in  the 
past,  as  well  out  here  as  at  home,  I  can  only  regret 
that  the  day  of  small  states  is  over.  As  you  have 
heard,  —  and,  indeed,  you  are  having  just  at  present  a 
very  forcible  demonstration  of  the  fact,  —  the  Spaniards 
began  to  rule  in  Luzon  in  a  mediaeval  spirit.  The  duty 
has  devolved  upon  you  Americans  of  facing  the  conse- 
quences of  this  selfish,  and  most  unintelligent  policy. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  221 

However,  they  got  the  inland  of  Luzon  under  some  sort 
of  control,  and  apparently  without  much  difficulty,  in  the 
first  instance,  because  the  inhabitants  were  a  mild,  in- 
offensive people.  Certainly  the  resistance  they  made 
was  nothing  like  as  vigorous  or  sustained  as  that  of  the 
Javanese  against  the  Dutch,  the  reason  being,  of  course, 
that  the  Javanese  have  a  much  larger  admixture  of  the 
Malay  strain  than  the  Filipinos,  and  that  of  course  is 
the  fighting  blood  of  the  East.  By  generations  of  bad 
government,  and  the  occasional  perpetration  of  whole- 
sale atrocities,  the  Spaniard  succeeded  in  forcing  the 
Filipinos  into  open  revolt  every  ten  years,  and  turned 
a  peace-loving  people  into  the  inveterate  bandits  which 
you  will  find  a  large  number  of  them  to  be  when  you 
come  to  look  over  your  heritage  by  the  treaty  of  Paris. 
They  are  in  a  state  of  anarchy  and  not  in  revolt,  and  it 
will  take  a  decade  of  the  hardest  and  most  patient  kind 
of  military  and  administrative  work,  —  and  mind  you, 
without  gloves,  —  before  you  inspire  them  with  a  respect 
for  the  law. 

"  Now  let  us  look  at  how  the  Dutch  fared  in  Java. 
They  fought  out  the  fight  from  the  beginning  in  an 
uncompromising  spirit  until  there  was  not  a  man  in 
arms  against  them  on  the  island.  Then  they  put 
every  able-bodied  islander  to  work  under  the  corvee 
system  of  enforced  labor,  the  Dutch  for  the  most  part 
overlooking  and  intelligently  directing  their  labor,  and 
of  the  fruits  of  this  partnership  the  Dutch  undoubt- 
edly kept  the  larger  share.  When  we  accepted  respon- 
sibility in  Egypt,  we  abolished  the  system  of  enforced 


222  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

labor,  and  the  result  of  the  njeasure  has  been  so  far 
excellent;  and  of  course  there  are  some,  'the  unco 
guid,'  among  us  who  throw  stones  at  the  Dutch,  and 
call  attention  to  the  alleged  fact  that  we  treat  the  native 
races  much  better  than  do  the  Dutch.  I  wish  I  could 
think  this  was  so,  but  of  course  the  comparison  is  un- 
fair. This  is  perhaps  a  case  where  the  proverb,  '  Other 
times  other  morals,'  should  be  accepted.  Certainly 
it  is  my  personal  conviction  that  the  whole  prosperity 
of  Java  to-day,  and  the  well-being  of  its  inhabitants, 
is  due  entirely  to  the  system  of  enforced  labor,  and  I 
think  that  in  a  somewhat  more  modern  form  and  with 
a  fairer  distribution  of  the  results,  it  would  be  well  for 
you  to  introduce  some  such  system  in  the  Philippines." 

"  But  the  rights  of  man,  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  Congress  !  "  I  gasped. 

"Yes,"  laughed  the  chief  justice;  "I  had  quite  for- 
gotten that  there  is  a  large  number  of  people  in  the 
United  States,  very  conscientious  citizens,  too,  I  have 
no  doubt,  with  only  a  sprinkling  of  noisy  demagogues 
and  foolish  doctrinaires  among  them,  who,  knowing 
nothing  about  the  conditions  out  here,  and  having 
never  come  in  contact  with  the  Asiatics,  and  being 
blind  (I  should  hate  to  think  that  they  would  willingly 
close  an  eye)  to  the  lamentable  results  of  their  policy 
toward  the  negro,  regard  these  mongrel  people  who  live 
in  the  Philippines  to-day  —  perhaps  it  would  be  fair  to 
call  them  the  refuse  of  Asia  and  of  Australasia,  —  as 
capable  of  exercising  all  the  duties  and  responsibilities 
of  popular  government  which  our  own  race  was  only 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  223 

able  to  assume  after  an  apprenticeship  of  more  than 
a  thousand  years.  You  should  always  remember  in 
dealing  with  the  Filipinos  that  they  are  spoiled  chil- 
dren—  spoiled  in  equal  measure  by  ill-judged  severity 
and  by  ill-advised  concessions.  There  is  no  danger 
now  of  a  repetition  of  the  atrocities  that  the  Spaniards 
committed  in  Luzon,  but  it  would  be  as  disastrous  for 
the  Filipinos  themselves,  and  for  you,  and  a  thousand 
times  more  disastrous  for  all  white  men  having  an  in- 
terest in  the  development  of  the  East  Coast,  should 
your  statesmen  and  legislators  be  hoodwinked  by  their 
bombastic  proclamations  into  treating  them  as  civilized 
men  capable  of  self-government.  All  their  talk  about 
an  independent  republic  is,  of  course,  the  most  utter 
nonsense.  They  don't  know  what  a  republic  is,  and 
they  don't  know  what  independence  is.  In  the  twenty- 
first  century,  when,  being  an  optimist,  I  believe  the 
world  will  be  more  civilized  than  it  is  to-day,  people 
like  the  Tagals  will  be  put  into  reformatories  and  man- 
ual labor  schools,  and  kept  there  by  the  world  powers 
under  the  same  restraints  to  which  at  present  we  sub- 
ject all  lunatics  and  others  who,  at  liberty,  would  prove 
a  menace  to  society. 

"  But  what  I  began  to  tell  you  about  was  the  result  of 
the  corvee  system  in  the  island  of  Java,  which  I  visited 
some  years  ago  on  my  '  short '  leave.  There  is  not  an 
acre  of  land  on  the  island  capable  of  being  tilled  which 
has  not  been  brought  under  cultivation.  While  the  na- 
tives have  never  received  anything  like  a  fair  proportion 
of  the  profits  of  the  partnership,  they  have  been  given 


224  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

enough  to  live  on  comfortably.  They  are  invariably 
treated  firmly  and  at  times  with  some  harshness,  but 
never  unjustly  except  in  so  far  as  the  basis  of  the  part- 
nership, that  to  the  Dutch  belongs  the  lion's  share  of  the 
profits,  is  unjust.  That  this  system  has  been,  on  the 
whole,  advantageous  to  the  natives,  both  morally  and 
materially,  is  shown  by  the  way  in  which  they  have 
prospered  under  Dutch  rule.  In  this  century  they  have 
increased  in  population,  without  the  aid  of  immigration, 
which  is  practically  forbidden,  from  three  to  thirty 
millions,  and  they  are  all  living  in  comfortable  circum- 
stances, in  the  absence  of  which,  of  course,  such  an  in- 
crease in  population  would  be  impossible.  To-day  the 
corvee  system  has  outlived  its  time,  and  has  been,  in 
part  at  least,  abolished.  The  Dutch  were  rather  luke- 
warm in  upholding  it  latterly  because,  owing  to  the  fall 
in  coffees  and  sugars,  there  was  more  trouble  than  profit 
in  the  system,  and  again  they  were  quick  to  see  that  the 
people  of  Java  are  not  what  they  were  a  hundred  years 
ago :  that  during  this  century  of  stern  rule  they  have 
acquired  habits  of  work  from  which  they  are  not  likely 
to  relapse  in  the  near  future.  I  met  many  of  the  promi- 
nent Javanese  and  can  vouch  for  their  high  intelligence. 
They  are  perfectly  well  aware  of  the  weakness  of  Holland 
as  an  Eastern  power,  and  undoubtedly  the  insurrection  of 
Aguinaldo  in  Luzon  is  being  exploited  by  ambitious  and 
unscrupulous  leaders  of  the  Malay  race  to  foment  insur- 
rections in  those  Malay  countries  which  have  been  placed 
under  the  restraints  and  the  police  of  civilization.  Yet  I 
believe  the  Javanese  will  remain  quiet  and  do  their  fair 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  225 

share  of  work,  and  for  this  we  have  to  thank  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  Dutch  and  their  training-school  of  forced 
labor.  I  do  not  speak  of  that  most  interesting  experiment 
in  a  similar  field  which  the  Japanese  are  carrying  on  in 
Formosa,  because  there  some  of  the  conditions  are  dif- 
ferent, the  Japanese  being  a  semi-Asiatic  race ;  but  prin- 
cipally because  it  would  be  manifestly  unfair  to  begin  to 
judge  of  results  when  the  plans  which  the  Marquis  Ito 
drew  up  for  reclaiming  the  island  have  not  yet  been  fully 
worked  out.  The  greater  portions  of  New  Guinea  and 
Sumatra  remain  practically  in  the  condition  they  have 
been  in  for  hundreds  of  years,  and  they  are  closed  to  the 
outside  world.  When  the  Dutch  began  to  civilize  Suma- 
tra, they  were  no  longer  the  power  they  had  been  when 
they  took  possession  of  Java,  and  there  they  have  failed 
to  repeat  their  wonderful  illustration  of  what  the  govern- 
ment of  a  tropical  island  should  be.  In  New  Guinea 
the  Germans  have  just  begun  to  colonize,  and  here,  as 
elsewhere,  they  are  showing  their  want  of  aptitude  as 
pioneers." 

These  scraps  of  the  chief  justice's  interesting  remarks 
will,  I  fear,  appear  to  you  somewhat  detached  —  staccato, 
as  they  say  in  music  —  but  you  must  remember  he  was  not 
speaking  by  the  card  or  from  a  paper,  and  that  he  was 
constantly  interrupted  by  questions  and  not  infrequently 
by  objections  which  I  have  not  the  time  to  reproduce 
here.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  accuracy  of  his  facts 
was  admitted  by  all,  and  most  of  his  conclusions,  though 
not  all,  were  accepted.  It  was  twelve  o'clock  before  we 
got  away  to  our  chairs  and  awakened  our  Chinese  coolies, 


226  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

who  had  been  sleeping  soundly  while  we  were  shaping 
the  destinies  of  their  fatherland  and  the  adjacent  coun- 
tries. Jim  only  joined  us  shortly  before  midnight,  at 
which  time  his  companion  had  said  it  would  not  do  to 
be  seen  sitting  out  on  a  veranda  in  Hong  Kong,  "  but 
in  Manchuria  "...  I  was  somewhat  alarmed,  though  Jim 
assured  me  that  he  had  said  nothing  that  could  be  used 
against  him  in  a  breach  of  promise  action.  He  admit- 
ted frankly  that  he  did  not  know  what  might  have  hap- 
pened had  she  not  worn  such  an  ill-fitting  gown.  So 
many  men  have  been  lost  through  the  artifice  of  the 
dressmaker,  that  I  think  it  only  fair  to  mention  the  way 
in  which  Jim  was  preserved  to  the  regiment  and  the 
"dry  weather"  campaign. 

HONG  KONG,  April  25,  1899. 

.  .  .  This  is  our  last  day  here,  and  I  have  chosen  to 
spend  it  alone  in  the  library  of  the  Club  up  above  the 
chimney-tops  and  the  rush  of  trade  and  traffic  below. 
The  Sherman  is  reported  ready  and  we  are  all  more  than 
anxious  to  get  to  our  journey's  end.  While  the  colonel 
has  heard  that  on  account  of  the  rains  our  little  army 
will  probably  be  forced  to  remain  on  the  defensive  until 
late  in  the  autumn,  still  the  Sherman  is  urgently  needed 
to  carry  back  to  San  Francisco  the  western  volunteers, 
who  have  rendered  such  splendid  services,  and  for  so 
many  months  over  the  time  they  were  bound  by  the 
terms  of  their  enlistment  to  remain  with  the  colors. 

The  moment  we  get  under  way  we  shall  begin  our 
preparations  to  disembark.  The  run  across  to  Manila 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  227 

is  a  short  one.  We  hope  to  make  it  in  sixty  hours, 
and  once  there  you  will  hear  from  me  less  frequently, 
for,  rains  or  no  rains,  we  of  the  Twenty-first,  as  well  as 
the  regimental  officers  of  all  the  so-called  regular  organi- 
zations will  have  our  hands  full  in  getting  into  shape  the 
raw  recruits  which  compose  the  reinforcements  that  are 
being  sent  to  General  Otis  to  the  extent  of  at  least 
eighty  per  cent.  There  will  be  little  time  for  letter- 
writing,  and  perhaps  we  shall  have  to  defer  this  ex- 
change of  impressions  as  to  our  new  possessions  and 
upon  the  way  in  which  the  Government  is  meeting  the 
new  responsibilities  until  we  are  both  home  again  from 
campaigns  which  will,  I  am  sure,  prove  on  one  hand  to 
be  a  triumph  of  peace  and  on  the  other  a  victorious 
war.  Suppose  we  now  arrange  a  dinner  to  be  held  in 
Washington  under  the  auspices  of  the  Golden  Horse- 
shoe ?  We  will  call  it  a  fixture  and  let  nothing  interfere 
with  it.  I  promise  to  appear  in  sackcloth  and  ashes  and 
publicly  recant  all  the  nonsense  I  have  written  about 
the  imperialistic  tendencies  of  the  day  and  our  selfish 
policy  of  aggrandizement.  Then  I  trust  you  will  exert 
your  influence,  as  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Spanish 
War  branch  of  the  society,  to  have  me  admitted  into 
the  number  of  those  fortunate  men  who,  unlike  the 
Apostle  Thomas  and  your  humble  servant,  believed 
though  they  had  not  seen. 

It  is  a  radiantly  beautiful  day.  Perhaps  you  who 
found  it  too  hot  even  in  Santiago  would  find  it  warm 
here,  but  there  is  a  pleasant  breeze  blowing  from  the 
west  to-day  and  the  punkahs  are  going,  and  altogether 


228  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

there  is  nothing  to  complain  of.  This  tropical  sunlight 
magnifies  and  renders  more  beautiful  and  attractive 
everything  upon  which  it  falls,  so  as  a  precaution,  as  I 
look  about  me  here  for  the  last  time,  I  shall  reverse  my 
glasses  and  look  upon  the  scene  from  the  larger  end, 
for  by  magnifying  it  one  would,  and  that  is,  I  believe, 
the  only  way  one  could,  belittle  the  achievement  of 
Hong  Kong.  I  have  hidden  from  the  youngsters  and 
dodged  a  kind  invitation  to  a  farewell  banquet  at  the 
mess  of  the  Engineers,  because  I  felt,  so  many  strange 
scenes  having  passed  before  my  eyes  and  so  many  new 
views  and  ideas  having  come  into  my  life,  that  a  day  of 
absolute  solitude  is  required,  if  only  to  catalogue  my 
impressions,  for  a  perfect  understanding  of  these  new 
wonders  is  a  matter  that  will  require  months,  if  not 
longer. 

...  If  you  could  but  listen  with  me  to  the  disjointed 
words  and  the  scraps  of  conversation  which  find  their 
way  up  the  spiral  stairway,  softened,  but  not  entirely 
subdued  by  the  distance,  you  would  imagine  that  these 
traders  out  here  have  anything  else  on  their  minds  but 
the  conquest  of  the  East  and  the  opening  of  this  closed 
world  to  their  commerce;  but  that  is  an  old  trick  of  the 
English,  and  certainly  if  it  be  a  trick  it  is  an  uncon- 
scious one.  There  was,  to  be  sure,  a  little  group  of 
men  in  the  paper  room  as  I  came  through  who,  I  was 
amused  to  notice,  as  though  they  did  not  have  enough 
unsettled  questions  on  their  hands  out  here,  were 
bothering  their  heads  about  the  Transvaal.  But  I 
should  say  that  what  they  one  and  all  really  seem  most 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  229 

interested  in  is  the  odds  upon  the  Derby,  and  the  con- 
flicting reports  as  to  the  favorite's  morning  gallop, 
and  all  the  stable  gossip  about  the  Irish  horse  that 
promises  to  capture  the  Grand  National,  and  they  pay 
daily  large  sums  of  money  —  for  cabling  to  Hong  Kong 
is  expensive  —  to  learn  all  about  thes~e  important  matters 
at  about  the  same  time  that  the  "Pinkun"  spreads  the 
sporting  gossip  of  the  day  before  the  London  public. 

It  is  all  so  strange  that  for  a  moment  I  think  that  the 
visit  to  Hong  Kong  is  a  dream,  and  I  am  not  at  all  easy 
in  my  mind  until  I  have  another  look  out  of  the  window 
and  see  Kowloon  across  the  narrow  strait  and  all  the 
filth  and  wretchedness  of  China  beyond.  .  .  . 

I  am  showing  the  strength  of  mind  or  the  laziness  of 
body  to  turn  away  again  from  that  fascinating  window 
and  to  close  my  eyes  to  the  beautiful  prospect  below. 
I  am  sitting  under  the  punkah,  reading  a  book  that  I 
grasp  firmly  in  my  hand,  while  my  eyes  are  closed,  a 
form  of  reading  in  the  tropics  which  is,  perhaps,  not 
quite  unknown  in  Puerto  Rico.  This  is  the  last  time  in 
many  a  long  day  that  I  can  rummage  about  in  a  library, 
for  I  hear  that  over  there  the  insurgents  have  destroyed 
many  of  the  monastic  libraries,  with  their  priceless 
manuscripts  and  documents  relating  to  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  in  the  East,  so  as  I  cannot 
sleep  I  decide  to  make  the  best  possible  use  of  my 
opportunity. 

As  I  run  my  eyes  along  the  shelves  filled  with  books 
dealing  with  the  East,  I  am  struck  with  the  deep  politi- 
cal insight  into  the  situation  which  the  librarian  displays 


23o  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

in  their  arrangement  For  instance,  there  is  a  shelf 
labelled,  "The  Portuguese  Empire  in  the  East."  It  is 
well  filled  with  stout  and  portly  tomes  bearing  the  im- 
print of  the  last  century,  and  of  course  they  are,  without 
exception,  mildewed  and  worm-eaten.  I  run  my  eyes 
along  the  shelf,  glancing  over  the  titles,  until  suddenly 
my  attention  is  arrested  by  what?  You  could  never 
imagine  —  a  block  of  wood !  So  the  Portuguese  Empire 
in  the  East  is  brought  to  an  abrupt  conclusion,  and  the 
librarian  has  utilized  the  space  remaining  upon  the  shelf 
to  stow  away  the  literature  which  has  grown  up  out 
here  (for  the  raw  material,  in  part  at  least,  comes  from 
an  island  near  Macoa),  dealing  with  that  useful  com- 
modity —  Portland  cement.  At  a  glance  one  sees  that 
the  librarian  regards  the  Portuguese  Empire  as  dead, 
and  that  he  has  not  even  had  the  piety  to  leave 
space  upon  his  shelves  for  an  epitaph  or  some  stray 
volume  of  antiquarian  research  dedicated  to  the  shades 
of  the  mighty  past.  He  has  also  curtailed  the  space 
devoted  to  the  Dutch  in  the  East  in  much  the  same 
way  —  only  here,  works  on  Demonology  intrude  — 
where  room  should  have  been  left  for  the  two  or  three 
volumes  that  have  to  be  written  to  close  the  account 
and  complete  the  history  of  the  Dutch  Colonial  Empire. 
The  French  are  treated  more  courteously  than  the 
countrymen  of  Linschoten  and  Daendels.  The  story  of 
the  great  empires  which  they  have  built  in  the  East, 
the  one  which  they  lost,  and  the  other  which  they  are 
about  to  lose,  is  set  forth  in  scores  of  volumes,  and  quite 
a  space  is  left  for  anything  that  may  yet  have  to  be  said 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  231 

before  the  English  enter  into  possession  and  reap  what 
the  French  sowed,  as  they  have  done  in  Canada  and 
elsewhere.  The  Spaniards,  I  regret  to  say,  do  not  even 
get  the  honors  of  a  shelf  to  themselves,  and  in  but  half 
a  dozen  volumes  their  story  is  told,  and  with,  I  think, 
but  scant  justice  to  their  great  achievements  in  the 
earlier  days.  This  slight  I  take  to  be  quite  uninten- 
tional. The  English  do  not  know  and  do  not  care  to 
know  anything  about  the  Spaniards  in  the  East.  They 
may  have  come  in  contact  occasionally,  but  they  never 
mixed  —  they  never  could,  any  more  than  oil  and  water. 
When  my  eyes,  wandering  on  to  the  next  shelf,  were 
caught  by  the  caption,  "America  in  the  Far  East,"  as 
you  can  well  imagine,  I  lost  all  interest  in  those  shelves 
upon  which  these  volumes  of  ancient  history  are  crum- 
bling into  dust.  I  cannot  tell  you  what  surprised  me 
most  in  this,  our  corner  of  the  library ;  whether  it  was 
the  goodly  number  of  books  in  which  the  achievements 
of  our  people  in  the  East  are  worthily  set  forth,  or  the 
great  area  which  the  librarian,  with  prophetic  insight, 
has  left  for  expansion.  I  could  not  refrain  from  hastily 
running  over  the  names  of  those  Americans  who  are 
well  remembered  in  the  East,  though  they  may  be  for- 
gotten at  home.  First,  there  is  Horsfield,  the  Ameri- 
can naturalist,  who  did  for  Java  and  Malaysia,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  what  Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  the 
Englishman,  has  so  brilliantly  done  in  the  nineteenth 
—  only  the  American  was  the  pioneer  by  a  hundred 
years ;  and  there  is  that  fine  story  of  the  opening  of 
Japan  by  Commodore  Perry,  told  by  Doctor  Hawkes 


23 2  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

in  an  old-fashioned  strain  of  patriotism,  which  I  would 
like  to  see  come  into  fashion  again ;  and  there  is  the 
diplomatic  history  of  Townsend  Harris  in  Siam  and 
Japan.  Even  the  British,  with  all  their  experience 
and  wider  range,  can  show  nothing  superior  to  his  suc- 
cess in  negotiating  with  the  "sullen  peoples."  Then 
comes  the  pioneer  work  of  Judson  in  Burmah,  and 
Bradley  and  his  colleagues  in  Siam. 

And  here,  between  the  plain  and  prosaic  boards  of 
a  U.  S.  Senate  Document,  I  have  actually  unearthed 
a  story  of  adventure.  The  Senate  published  this  docu- 
ment in  1859,  and  I  have  forgotten  the  name  of  the 
hero,  but  no  matter;  he  was  a  Calif orniari  and  an 
American.  For  years  he  travelled  through  Mongolia 
and  along  what  is  to-day  the  Russo-Chinese  frontier; 
and  while  doing  so,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  the  great 
Trans-Siberian  Railway  which  is  now  nearing  comple- 
tion, though  perhaps  no  one  in  Russia  to-day  knows  by 
whom  the  idea  was  first  suggested.  He  lies  here, 
buried  in  a  Senate  document.  It  is  pleasant,  how- 
ever, to  think  that,  even  in  the  less  spacious  days  in 
which  he  lived,  Congress  thought  his  very  practical 
impressions  of  travel  worthy  to  be  printed;  and  who 
can  say,  had  not  the  great  calamity  of  the  Civil  War 
intervened,  what  results  might  not  have  followed  upon 
his  daring  project  to  open  up  the  Asiatic  markets,  and 
to  build  railways  through  lands  which  belonged  to  no 
one,  and  which  might  have  become  American  for  the 
trouble  of  taking  possession  ? 

Again,  I  think  there  is  nothing  finer,  and  certainly 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  233 

nothing  could  be  less  widely  known,  than  the  story  of 
that  expedition  which,  fitted  out  by  one  of  our  great 
telegraph  companies,  crossed  over  from  Alaska  to  Si- 
beria in  1864,  for  the  purpose  of  surveying  a  telegraph 
route  across  Asia,  so  that  Europe  and  America  might 
be  brought  into  instantaneous  communication  by  the 
electric  spark.  Several  of  these  daring  pioneers  were 
frozen  to  death,  others  died  of  starvation,  but  neverthe- 
less the  survey  chart  had  been  all  but  completed  up  to 
the  Urals  when  submarine  telegraphy  was  invented, 
and  the  first  cablegram  sent  to  England.  For  a  time, 
it  must  have  seemed  as  though  the  sacrifice  in  life  and 
limb  which  these  men  had  brought  was  made  in  vain, 
the  object  for  which  they  suffered  having  been  attained 
in  another  direction.  The  project  upon  which  they 
worked  the  land  wire  across  Asia  was,  for  a  time, 
abandoned,  but  only  for  a  time,  for  the  Russians  took 
it  up  and,  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  growing 
empire  in  Siberia,  carried  it  to  completion ;  and  in  run- 
ning their  land  line  across  Siberia,  they  have  availed 
themselves,  in  a  great  measure,  of  the  survey  of  the 
Americans  who  froze  and  starved  out  there  forty  years 
ago. 

Running  along  the  array  of  books  I  come  to  our  little 
war  with  Corea,  in  which  Admiral  Rodgers  cracked 
the  shell  of  the  hermit  kingdom  and  introduced  to  the 
world  at  large  the  most  recluse  of  the  hermits  of  Asia. 
The  Coreans,  I  believe,  and  this  was  the  cause  of  the 
war,  had  a  way  of  killing,  and  in  some  instances  of 
eating,  American  seamen  who  were  wrecked  upon 


234  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

their  coast,  and  the  disappearance  of  a  bark  which, 
curiously  enough,  like  our  transport,  was  called  the 
Sherman,  was  the  cause  of  the  little  war,  and  this  ex- 
pedition paid,  because  since  then  there  has  not  been 
another  case  of  piracy  along  the  Corean  coast.  It  is 
wonderfully  creditable  to  the  sturdy,  uncompromising 
American  spirit  that  (and  this  was  the  cause  of  our  little 
war  with  the  Barbary  Corsairs)  we  have  never  com- 
pounded felony  by  conniving  at  piracy,  or  paid  a  surrep- 
titious tribute  to  the  pirates,  as  all  the  Mediterranean 
powers  did  for  so  many  years  to  the  Moors,  and  as 
some  powers  out  here  have  undoubtedly  done  to  the 
Sulus. 

As  you  see,  I  am  confining  my  list,  taken  from  the 
library  shelves  of  Americans  famous  in  the  East, 
exclusively  to  men  of  action.  If  I  admitted  to  it 
sinologues,  and  men  of  science  and  of  religion,  such 
as  Morison,  whose  grave  you  will  remember  we  dis- 
covered in  Macoa,  and  .Doctor  Wells  Williams,  or 
diplomatists  such  as  Robert  McLane,  Caleb  Cushing, 
Anson  Burlingame,  Ross  Brown,  Denby,  and  a  thousand 
others  who  have  served  the  interests  of  their  country 
well  upon  the  east  coast  of  Asia,  this  letter  would 
soon  grow  into  a  volume. 

As  I  look  upon  the  vacant  space,  and  it  is  a  large  one, 
that  the  librarian  has  left  for  American  expansion,  there 
comes  home  to  me  the  thought  which  Lincoln  so  well 
expressed  with  the  words,  "  We  cannot  escape  history." 
No,  there  is  no  shirking  that,  and  with  my  mind's  eye 
I  see  the  row  of  volumes  which  will  soon  fill  that  vacant 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  235 

space,  telling  the  story  of  American  civilization  in  the 
Philippines  and  whether  we  did  our  task  there  well  or  ill, 
and  I  am  glad  to  have  the  opportunity  to  play  a  part  — 
the  small  and  fractional  part  of  a  regimental  officer,  but 
still  a  part  —  in  that  chapter  of  our  history.  .  .  .  And 
of  course  there  are  many  volumes,  and  good,  sterling, 
straightforward  books  they  are,  going  right  to  the  heart 
of  the  subject,  which  tell  of  the  expansion  of  British 
trade  and  consequently  of  British  power.  It  is  such 
a  splendid  achievement  that  the  story  cannot  fail  to  im- 
press you  however  drearily  the  historian  may  prose  along. 
I  turned  over  many  hundreds  of  these  pages,  but  in 
vain.  I  could  not  fully  grasp  the  greatness  and  the  glory 
of  the  achievement  until  I  turned  from  the  book  shelves 
and  looked  down  upon  the  ever  changing  panorama  of 
activity  and  life  which  from  the  windows  stretched  out 
before  me  as  far  as  my  eye  could  reach.  And  in  the 
first  flush  of  enthusiasm,  as  I  began  to  understand  it 
all,  I  could  hardly  refrain  from  cheering  those  gallant 
ships  as  they  came  and  went,  proud  as  they  might  well 
be  of  the  flag  they  flew  and  the  men  at  the  helm  and 
the  men  behind  the  guns  who  had  transformed  a  rob- 
bers' nest  into  this  emporium  of  Eastern  trade  within 
the  short  day  of  one  generation!  .  .  . 

There  is  a  detail  of  the  picture  which  tells  the  story 
of  what  Hong  Kong  stands  for  in  the  East  to-day  better 
than  any  number  of  the  pompous,  stilted  phrases  to  be 
found  on  the  printed  pages.  We  did  not  notice,  or 
rather  we  did  not  understand,  this  side  scene  before  our 
visit  to  Canton.  But  all  along  the  coast  of  the  little 


236  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

island,  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  its  bays  and  inlets, 
you  will  notice,  lying  at  anchor  or  with  a  line  passed  to 
the  shore,  an  infinite  number  of  leaky  sampans  and 
small  crazy  junks  which  are  crowded  with  refugees  from 
the  injustice  and  the  mandarin  "  squeeze  "  of  their  Chi- 
nese homes.  Here  they  are  awaiting  a  chance  of  employ- 
ment, for  the  little  island  is  crowded  to  overflowing,  and 
the  labor  market  is  glutted  with  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  coolies  who  have  flocked  here  and  who  are 
still  coming  from  every  quarter  of  east  Asia,  only  too 
glad  of  an  opportunity  to  work  fourteen  hours  a  day  in 
the  broiling  sun,  and  for  what?  Wealth  ?  Not  at  all: 
but  for  a  pot  of  rice,  seasoned,  when  work  is  plentiful, 
with  a  little  seaweed  in  lieu  of  salt. 

I  had  returned  to  my  cool  rattan  lounge  under  the 
punkah  and  to  my  book  which  did  not  intrude,  when 
suddenly  the  Westminster  Chimes  fell  upon  my  ear  and 
I  thought  to  see  the  great  tower  under  which  parlia- 
ment sits,  and  to  hear  the  Temple  bells,  and  was  expect- 
ing every  moment  to  hear  the  rumble  of  the  "  busses  " 
and  the  creaking  of  the  harness  as  they  slow  up  passing 
St.  Mary's,  where  the  Strand  dies  and  the  Fleet  begins ; 
but  it  is  only  the  bells  in  the  clock  tower  of  the  Post 
Office  and  the  Custom  House  across  the  way,  that  ring 
out  the  music  which  the  English  have  carried  around 
the  world  with  them.  .  .  . 

But,  that  dream  has  given  me  an  excuse  to  take  up 
my  stand  at  the  window  again  and  watch  the  steamers 
as  they  switch  in  and  out  of  the  harbor.  Every  flag 
that  flies  passes  in  review,  but  of  course  the  British  pre- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  237 

dominates.  Our  flag  is  such  a  rarity  in  this  great  mar- 
ket that  the  boatmen  as  they  pass  the  Sherman  rest 
on  their  oars  and  point  with  astonishment  to  the  stars 
and  bars.  Since  we  have  been  here  we  have  only  seen 
our  flag  once,  and  we  heartily  wish  we  had  been  spared 
the  humiliating  spectacle.  It  flew  from  a  vessel  that, 
judging  only  by  appearances,  must  have  been  built 
about  the  time  of  the  Constitution  or  the  United 
States  and  those  other  fine  old  line-of-battle  ships  which 
one  stumbles  upon  every  now  and  then,  rotting  away  in 
some  odd  corner  of  our  Navy  Yards.  The  owners 
would  seem  to  think  that  they  had  complied  with  all  the 
requirements  of  the  times  by  putting  low-powered  en- 
gines into  these  old  hulks,  calling  them  mail  steamers, 
and  sending  them  across  the  Pacific  at  less  speed  than 
the  ordinary  tramp  or  collier,  though  they  are  under  con- 
tract to  carry  the  United  States  mail.  Such  vessels  as 
these,  until  the  Spanish  War,  were  the  only  outward  and 
visible  signs  of  American  power  to  be  seen  off  the  east 
coast  of  Asia.  There  is  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth, 
I  can  tell  you,  among  the  traders  of  Shanghai  and 
Hong  Kong  when  they  learn  that  their  letters  have 
"caught  the  American  mail."  .  .  . 

In  front  of  the  Post  Office  here  they  have  a  bulletin- 
board  with  reversible  shutters,  very  much  like  those 
indicators  in  our  railway  stations  which  list  the  places 
where  the  train  that  is  about  to  start  will  stop ;  only  this 
bulletin-board  is  much  larger,  as  it  should  be,  for  it  is  a 
time-table  of  world  travel,  and  it  registers  the  heart-beat 
of  commerce  throughout  the  East.  It  is  a  fascinating 


238  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

sight.  Try  as  I  may,  I  have  never  been  able  to  take 
my  eyes  off  it,  once  they  become  glued  there,  under 
an  hour  or  two.  Upon  wooden  slats  are  printed  the 
names  and  the  destination  of  the  ships  as  they  come 
and  go.  These  little  placards  fall  before  my  eyes  and 
are  replaced  like  shuttles  in  the  loom  of  time.  I 
shall  not  trouble  you  with  the  names  of  the  steamers 
which  came  and  went  with  their  argosies  as  I  stood  and 
watched.  It  would  read  like  any  page  taken  at  random 
from  Lloyd's  list  of  full-powered  steamers ;  but  I  send 
you  a  list  of  their  destinations  as  I  copied  them  while 
the  shutters  of  the  bulletin-board  rose  and  fell.  It  is 
the  simple  chronicle  of  the  commerce  of  Hong  Kong 
for  four  hours  of  an  afternoon  in  the  slack  season : 
Kobe,  Nagasaki,  Amoy,  Swatow,  Kudat,  and  Sandakan 
(Borneo  ports),  Port  Darwin,  Sydney,  Melbourne,  New 
Schwang  (Manchuria),  Vladivostok  (Siberia),  Manila, 
Ilo-Ilo,  Kelung  (Formosa),  Yokohama,  Shanghai,  Bang- 
kok, Saigon,  Hanoi,  Singapore,  Benkulen,  Rhio  (Sumatra), 
Batavia,  Surabaya  (Java),  Calcutta,  Bombay,  Colombo, 
New  York  (a  tea  steamer  by  way  of  Suez),  Marseilles, 
Brindisi,  Genoa,  Bordeaux,  Odessa,  Amsterdam,  and  of 
course  London  and  Liverpool  many  times  repeated. 

U.  S.  TRANSPORT  Sherman, 

OFF  NAGASAKI,  JAPAN,  May  12. 

MY  DEAR  GILL  :  — 

I  would  like  to  see  your  face  as  you  read  the 
above  date  line,  but  be  sparing  of  your  emotions; 
'tis  but  the  first  of  the  many  surprises  that  the  log- 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  239 

book  of  the  Sherman  for  the  last  three  weeks  has  in 
store  for  you.  We  have  been  farther,  much  farther 
north  than  this,  very  near  the  arctic  circle,  I  should  say, 
but,  strangely  enough,  not  above  the  mosquito  line.  We 
did  not  lose  our  reckoning,  as  the  sailors  say,  but  were 
simply  caught  in  the  grip  of  the  first  typhoon  of  the 
season,  and  when  it  let  go  we  were  a  thousand  miles 
and  more  out  of  our  course.  It  appears  that  while  our 
skipper,  the  close-mouthed  old  clam,  said  nothing  about 
it  at  the  time,  the  facilities  afforded  us  at  Hong  Kong 
to  repair  the  Sherman,  through  no  fault  of  the  British 
authorities,  were  not  as  complete  as  we  "had  hoped  for. 
One  of  Dewey's  ships,  the  Baltimore,  I  believe,  was  in 
one  dry-dock,  while  the  other  was  filled  by  a  large  P.  & 
CX  mail  steamer ;  so  our  skipper  had  to  content  himself 
with  sending  down  divers  to  tinker  with  the  plates  that 
were  giving  trouble.  The  result  was  that  as  soon  as  we 
got  out  in  the  open  and  the  storm  came  on,  the  Sherman 
began  to  go  "  tender,"  as  the  soldiers  said,  and  had  to 
be  handled  accordingly.  But  to  my  story.  We  were 
hardly  out  of  sight  of  the  Peak  when  the  great 
scattering  winds  came  on  to  blow.  In  a  very  few 
minutes  they  beat  up  a  tremendous  sea  and  the 
Sherman  was  tossed  about  as  though  she  were  a 
cockle-shell,  and  we  had  a  wretchedly  uncomfort- 
able time  of  it,  I  can  assure  you,  with  1200  soldiers 
rolling  about  the  deck  in  the  throes  of  seasickness. 
Typhoon  is,  I  hear,  a  Chinese  word  which  means 
four  winds,  and  is  supposed  to  be  descriptive  of  the  way 
in  which,  during  these  hurricanes  of  the  East,  the  wind 


240  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

blows  from  one  quarter  and  then  from  another  in  quick 
succession,  until  it  has  nearly,  if  not  quite,  "  boxed  the 
compass."  We  had,  I  think,  more  than  our  fair  share; 
at  least  ten  winds,  it  seemed  to  me,  converged  upon  the 
Sherman  and  took  part  in  the  atmospheric  mix-up  of 
which  we  were  the  storm-centre.  Upon  our  decks 
there  was  more  suffering  than  upon  any  battle-field,  and 
nothing  short  of  the  august  presence  of  the  major- 
general  commanding  could  have  maintained  garrison 
discipline.  On  the  third  day  of  this  misery  —  I  am 
speaking  not  from  memory  but  by  the  log  —  the  scatter- 
ing winds  combined  forces,  and  the  result  was  a 
"  southwester  "  that  sent  the  Sherman  travelling  north 
at  the  rate  of  seven  or  eight  knots  an  hour,  though  we 
only  had  enough  steam  on  to  keep  the  ship  under  the 
control  of  its  rudder.  I  only  wish  I  could  describe  that 
storm  to  you,  but  I  can't ;  the  fact  is  that  though  I  felt  it 
all  keenly,  I  saw  precious  little  of  it.  To  us  on  board,  it 
was  an  eternity  of  suffering,  but  upon  the  unfeeling  log 
it  is  simply  set  down  as  a  typhoon  from  whose  track  we 
were  unable  to  escape  for  three  days.  When  the  row 
began  it  had  been  my  purpose  to  remain  on  deck  to  set 
an  heroic  example  to  my  command.  I  proposed  to  have 
myself  lashed  to  the  mast  a  la  Farragut  and  so  preside 
at  once  over  the  battle  of  the  elements  and  the  company 
streets ;  but  I  soon  found  out  from  indications  which  it 
was  impossible  to  misinterpret  that  whatever  I  may  be 
on  land  I  most  certainly  am  not  a  Dewey.  I  had  not 
the  stomach  for  a  sea-fight,  and  in  order  that  I  might 
not  lose  the  last  atom  of  my  self-respect,  not  to  speak 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  241 

of  all  prestige  with  my  men,  I  retired  to  my  bunk, 
which  was  fortunately  in  a  deck  cabin.  The  following 
days  of  misery  are  almost,  but  not,  however,  entirely 
blank;  I  had  at  least  two  moments  of  consciousness. 
One  was  a  feeling  of  utter  despair  when,  as  I  swigged 
away  at  my  flask  that  contained  all  my  meat  and  drink 
during  the  storm,  it  gave  out  a  throaty  sound  and  my 
lips  remained  dry.  The  other  incident  which  I  recall 
was  not  so  tragic.  You  will  remember,  doubtless,  the 
ties  of  Homeric  friendship  that  exist  between  Sherman 
and  myself.  I  appreciate  how  our  Munchausen  wearies 
of  talking  to  the  unimaginative  dough-boys,  and  so  am 
only  too  glad  to  have  him  crawl  out  by  me  of  an  evening 
on  the  hurricane  deck  to  smoke  a  pipe  and  chew  over 
again  the  cud  of  our  Cuban  and  his  Afghan  campaign. 
It  was  only  an  hour  before  "hell  broke  loose" — for  in 
this  way  the  soldiers  describe  the  coming  of  the  typhoon 
—  that  Sherman  communicated  to  me,  in  the  strictest 
confidence,  a  plan  which  he  has  hatched  out  during 
the  voyage  and  proposes  submitting  to  General  Otis 
at  the  first  opportunity.  He  expects  that  it  will  win 
him  at  least  a  second  lieutenant's  commission  in  one  of 
the  new  regiments. 

"  Perhaps  you  don't  remember,  captain,"  began 
"  Windy,"  "  though  it's  all  down  in  the  War  Department 
records  right  enough  —  so  my  senator  says  —  that  I 
took  part  as  color  sergeant  and  gineral  right  hand  man  to 
Bertie  Kitchener  in  the  famous  march  of  the  camel 
corps  from  Suakin  to  Dongola.  We  were  after  rescu- 
ing Gordon  at  Khartoum,  you  may  remember,  and  it 


242  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

wasn't  any  fault  of  ours  that  we  didn't.  If  he  'd  only 
lived  a  little  longer  we  would  have  rescued  him  right 
enough."  And  with  this  preliminary  flourish,  "  Windy  " 
got  down  to  business.  "  Now,  captain,  I  am  the  man 
that  trained  thim  camels,  every  mother's  son  of  thim,  and 
what  I  did  then  I  can  do  again,  because  I  am  just  as 
good  a  man  though  I  do  weigh  three  stone  more.  What 
Gineral  Otis  has  been  wanting  for  a  long  time  is  a  camel 
corps,  and  he  can't  corner  '  Aggie '  until  he  gets  one. 
Horses  would  drown  sure,  floundering  through  those 
paddy  fields ;  and  there  isn't  another  man  in  the  army  as 
can  train  camels  like  me,  though  perhaps  I'm  saying  it 
who  shouldn't." 

"  But  suppose  there  are  no  camels  in  the  Philippines, 
Sherman,"  I  suggested,  foolish  man  that  I  was  to  think 
for  a  moment  I  could  upset  Windy's  aplomb. 

"  Well,  if  there  ain't  any  camels  out  there,"  he  an- 
swered, calmly  blowing  out  ringlets  of  smoke  from  his 
short  clay  pipe,  "  we  must  do  the  best  we  can  with  j ay- 
raff  es;  they  are  just  as  big  and  strong  as  camels,  but  a 
deal  sight  harder  to  break  in  to  business,  and  it  takes  a 
single  cinch  broncho  buster  to  sit  'em,  I  can  tell  you." 
On  this  the  first  afternoon  that  I  began  again  to  take 
notice  of  things,  I  saw  the  commander  of  the  camel  corps 
crawling  on  all  fours  upon  the  deck  past  my  door.  He 
crept  along  close  to  the  scuppers,  and  I  could  not  help 
laughing  as  I  saw  him  peeping  down  through  the  hawse- 
holes  and  talking  to  the  waves.  "  Now  be  good,  won't 
you  ?  Be  quiet,  and  if  you  can't  be  quiet,  be  as  quiet  as 
you  can  until  I  find  my  compadre." 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  243 

Well,  after  only  three  days  of  this  suffering,  according 
to  the  log,  but  after  what  was,  according  to  the  chronicle 
of  our  feelings,  an  eternity  of  discomfort,  the  scattering 
slap-dash  winds  of  the  typhoon  combined,  as  I  have  told 
you,  with  the  result  that  a  steady  southwester  came  on 
to  blow,  covering  the  Yellow  Sea  with  a  rancid  foam, 
and  we  were  compelled  to  run  before  the  gale,  though 
every  mile  we  were  making  to  the  north  was  adding  to 
the  distance  that  separated  us  from  Manila.  In  the 
present  condition  of  our  machinery  and  our  hull,  the 
Sherman  could  not  for  a  moment  have  been  turned 
south  to  buck  against  the  storm.  In  this  plight,  we  ran 
on  until  we  came  to  and  crossed  the  Kuro  Siwo,  or  the 
Black  Stream  of  Japan,  which  is  the  Gulf  Stream  of 
the  Pacific  (we  were  running  north  outside  Formosa), 
and  now  the  waters,  which  had  been  as  yellow  as 
melted  butter,  turned  a  blue  black.  When  the  fourth 
day  dawned,  we  were  still  held  in  the  grasp  of  the  gale, 
and  the  Sherman  went  flying  past  Nagasaki,  where  we 
had  hoped  to  coal  and  refit.  Things  began  to  look  a 
little  serious  now.  The  stores  which  we  were  carrying 
over  for  both  the  army  and  navy  had  considerably  cur- 
tailed our  bunker  space,  and  what  coal  we  had  left  was 
simply  dust.  All  that  evening  we  switched  in  and  out 
among  the  islands  of  the  Corean  Archipelago,  and  finally 
"  halted  "  as  Jim  said,  behind,  or  rather  in  front  of,  one  of 
them,  which  was  Quelpart  or  Tshushima.  We  didn't 
quite  know  which  it  was,  and  our  skipper  did  not  care  to 
enlighten  us.  The  next  morning  we  got  out  an  anchor 
and  remained  there  all  day  quite  comfortably,  for  we 


244  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

were,  in  a  measure,  protected  from  the  violence  of  the 
storm  by  a  bold  headland  and  the  innumerable  islands 
which  dotted  the  sea  ahead  of  us,  and  in  fact  all  about  us, 
and  broke  not  a  little  the  force  of  the  great  waves  which 
came  rolling  in.  Soon  a  fog  that  was  suffocatingly 
thick  came  up  and  shut  out  the  view  of  our  cheerless 
suiToundings.  I  spent  the  day  with  the  skipper  in  the 
chart  room,  where  there  was  much  talk,  wholly  incom- 
prehensible to  the  landsman,  going  on  concerning  quad- 
rants and  sextants  and  sun  calculations,  in  all  of  which 
I  now  took  an  interest,  which  was,  I  can  assure  you,  not 
wholly  academic. 

Shortly  before  midnight  the  wind  veered  a  point  or 
two  and  another  great  sea  was  kicked  up  and  our  an- 
chor began  to  drag,  and  soon  we  lost  it  in  the  rocks. 
There  seemed  to  be  no  help  for  it  now  but  to  let  the 
Sherman  run  ahead.  Bad  as  that  was,  it  was  better  to 
take  our  chances  of  finding  the  open  sea  than  to  pin  all 
our  hopes  to  our  last  anchor  in  such  a  gale  as  this, 
blowing  on  a  lee  shore.  Groaning  in  every  timber, 
throughout  the  night  the  Sherman  steamed  slowly 
ahead.  Our  skipper  stood  on  the  bridge  leaning  far  for- 
ward, and  with  his  nostrils  extended,  as  though  he  was 
smelling  out  the  lay  of  the  land,  and  I  for  one,  at  least, 
had  as  much  confidence  in  the  captain's  nose  as  I  had 
in  the  nautical  instruments. 

"Give  her  a  point,  two  points,  to  starboard,"  I 
heard  him  say  time  and  again  to  the  quartermaster, 
"it  seems  to  me  I  smell  less  dirt  in  that  than  any 
other  direction;"  and  so  we  went  ahead,  following  the 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  245 

skipper's  nose,  and  of  course  with  the  lead  going  in- 
cessantly. 

Shortly  after  the  break  of  day  we  ran  into  a  won- 
derful and,  for  the  landsmen,  a  most  uncanny  phe- 
nomenon. Up  aloft  the  fog  cleared  away,  and  the 
masthead  of  the  Sherman  was  soon  bathed  in  golden 
sunlight,  while  down  on  the  decks  we  were  still  envel- 
oped in  the  cold  mist.  Soon  a  strange  sound  fell  upon 
our  ears ;  it  was  like  the  beat  of  a  screw  keeping  time 
to  the  revolutions  of  our  own  propeller,  and  it  came 
nearer.  An  expression  of  almost  superstitious  terror 
shot  over  our  matter-of-fact  skipper's  face,  for  in  the 
bottom  of  every  sailor-man's  heart  there  is  a  strong 
belief  in  the  supernatural,  which  crops  out  upon  such 
occasions  as  this;  not  that  he  admitted  it,  however 
—  not  for  one  moment. 

"  We  have  poked  our  way  into  some  almost  land- 
locked bay,  probably,"  he  said,  in  answer  to  my  look  of 
inquiry,  "and  that  sound  you  hear  is  the  echo  of  our 
own  screw  sent  back  by  the  rock-bound  coast." 

I  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  point  out  that  had  the 
sound  been  simply  an  echo  it  would  not  be  heard  simul- 
taneously, but  a  little  later  than  the  roll  of  the  Sher- 
man's screw.  It  was  not  worth  while  to  combat  an 
opinion  which  I  saw  at  a  glance  the  skipper  himself 
did  not  believe  in  for  a  moment.  When  the  uncanny 
noise  first  fell  upon  our  ears,  he  had  called  down  to  the 
engineer  to  stop  her  and  then  to  back  her  at  half  speed. 
The  waves  kept  tumbling  about  us  in  a  way  which  still 
further  put  to  scorn  the  theory  that  we  had  found  our 


246  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

way  into  land-locked  waters,  and  as  we  slowed  up  the 
echoing  screw  beat  faster  and  faster.  My  men  had 
passed  the  night  crowded  together  on  the  bow  deck. 
As  I  ran  forward  to  be  with  them  in  case  anything  seri- 
ous happened,  I  saw  them  springing  to  their  feet  and 
gesticulating  wildly,  and  as  I  followed  the  direction  in 
which  they  pointed,  I  saw  over  our  bow  ahead  the  Stars 
and  Stripes,  bathed  in  the  warm  sunlight  up  aloft, 
floating  on  the  breeze,  and  apparently  suspended  from 
nowhere.  We  stood  as  men  spellbound  for  a  moment ; 
then  the  spell  was  broken  by  the  sound  of  a  bugle,  and 
the  opening  bars  of  the  "Star  Spangled  Banner  "  came 
across  the  sea.  The  flag  rose  higher  and  higher,  though 
we  could  not  see  how  or  by  whom  it  was  raised.  Then 
we  heard  the  tramp  of  many  men  hastening  along  a 
deck,  and  the  skipper  said,  "  We  will  clear  her  all  right 
now,  I  expect.  It's  one  of  our  own  war  vessels ;  she's 
hoisting  her  colors ;  it  must  be  just  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning."  Then,  turning  to  our  second  mate,  "  So  make 
it,  Mr.  Watson."1 

Then  as  our  men  swarmed  up  the  shrouds  and 
cheered  the  flag  to  the  echo,  the  heavy  damp  fog,  as 
though  not  wishing  to  stand  in  the  way  of  such  a  re- 
union of  the  services,  lifted,  and  there  she  was  —  the 
Petrel — one  of  Dewey's  gunboats,  so  close  to  us  that 
the  proverbial  biscuit  could  have  been  thrown  from 


*  Captain  Herndon  here  doubtless  refers  to  the  custom  on  board  United 
States  men-of-war  of  raising  the  flag  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The 
captain  of  the  Sherman  knew  this,  and  set  his  time  accordingly.  —  THE 
EDITOR. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  247 

one  ship  to  the  other.  She  was  creeping  down  the 
dangerous  coast  of  Corea  from  Chemulpo,  for,  as  per- 
haps you  know,  a  detail  of  the  white  man's  burden  in 
the  East  is  the  keeping  of  a  man-of-war  off  that  port 
and  a  guard  of  marines  at  the  legation  in  Seoul.  The 
captain  and  our  colonel  had  quite  a  talk,  without  having 
to  use  the  'phone,  and  as  we  began  to  drift  apart,  the 
jackies  dressed  ship  and  the  "dough-boys"  presented 
arms.  Soon  the  fog  thickened  and  fell  again  like 
a  pall  upon  the  waters,  and  the  flag  of  the  little  gun- 
boat that  had  appeared  before  us  in  such  a  strange  way 
faded  from  view. 

I  do  not  think  I  ever  realized  before  this  experience 
how  I  loved  every  star  and  every  bar  in  that  dear  piece 
of  bunting  —  no,  not  even  excepting  the  day  when  Pres- 
ton brought  up  the  flag  of  the  Sixteenth  to  where  we 
crouched,  a  thin  and  broken  skirmish  line,  around  three 
sides  of  the  San  Juan  fort.  There  the  flag  was  where 
we  expected  it  would  be,  and  where  we  were  prepared 
to  defend  it  with  our  life's  blood,  but  here  we  were 
taken  off  guard,  and  could  not  quite  disguise  our  feelings. 
Who  would  have  thought  to  see  "  Old  Glory "  rising 
out  of  the  gray  fog-banks  off  the  Corean  coast  ? 

I  shall  spare  you  a  repetition  of  the  notes  in  my  diary 
for  th*e  next  day  or  two,  important  and  indeed  of  vital 
interest  as  they  were  to  us  at  the  time.  Such  matters  as 
empty  coal-bunkers  and  hollow  sounding  water  butts 
would  probably  not  thrill  you  in  far-away  Puerto  Rico. 
The  southwester  blew  on  steadily,  and  as  at  this  stage 
of  the  monsoon  it  was  likely  to  keep  on  blowing  with 


248  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

unabated  vigor  for  weeks  to  come,  our  skipper  gave  up 
all  thought  of  putting  back.  Creeping  along  the 
Corean  coast,  however,  as  we  now  decided  to  do,  we 
could  hope  to  make  the  port  of  Gensan,  and,  once  there, 
perhaps  secure  some  Shantung  coal.  As  ill  luck  would 
have  it,  however,  when  we  did  reach  there  it  was  only 
to  find  out  that  the  Russian  Asiatic  squadron  had  called 
ten  days  before  and  taken  away  every  ton  of  coal  there 
was. 

Still  we  had  a  chance  to  stretch  our  legs  on  shore 
and  to  see  another  picture  of  that  Far  East  which  is 
disappearing  so  fast.  The  port  itself  we  found  to  be 
one  of  the  finest  harbors  in  the  world,  an  advantage 
which  is  all  the  more  appreciated  because  the  rock- 
bound  coast  hereabouts  is  almost  bare  of  harbors  or 
even  places  of  refuge.  The  English  took  possession  of 
one  of  the  neighboring  bays  some  years  ago,  when  war 
with  Russia  seemed  inevitable,  but  they  relinquished 
it  when  the  war-cloud  was  dissipated  by  diplomatic 
methods.  Gensan  is  now  practically  Russian,  though 
they  do  not  fly  their  flag  over  it.  Russian  engineers, 
however,  have  marked  out  the  sites  for  batteries,  and 
even  built,  it  is  said,  though  we  did  not  see  them,  the 
emplacements  for  the  harbor  defence  guns  which  are 
ready  and  waiting  in  Vladivostok  to  be  shipped  here 
the  moment  the  political  situation  shall  require  such  a 
step.  So  you  may  take  it  that  Gensan  belongs  to  Rus- 
sia, though  the  lexicons  will  tell  you  that  it  is  the  sec- 
ond port  of  the  Hermit  Kingdom  of  Corea. 

Gulliver  in  all  his  travels  saw  nothing  more  surpris- 


THE   GODDEN   HORSESHOE  249 

ing  than  we  did  during  our  short  stay  in  this  strange 
out-of-the-way  corner  of  the  world.  After  his  first  look 
around  Jim  announced  that  the  appearance  and  the 
behavior  of  the  people  was  so  astonishing  that  he, 
with  a  reputation  as  a  truthful  reporter  at  stake, 
would  not  dare  to  touch  upon  the  matter  in  his  corre- 
spondence without  the  corroborative  evidence  which 
only  his  never  sufficiently  to  be  regretted  kodak  could 
furnish.  As  we  came  on  shore  the  heat  that  prevailed 
was  almost  overpowering.  Several  thousand  men, 
dressed  like  clowns  in  a  circus  —  that  is,  in  dirty  white 
loose  fitting  gowns,  but  without  spangles  —  were  out  on 
the  beach  to  greet  us.  They  were  all  smoking  pipes 
from  two  to  six  feet  in  length.  They  all  seemed  very 
tired,  as  though  they  had  been  working  for  years  with- 
out a  let-up,  and  now  they  were  taking  their  rest  in 
the  strangest  position  imaginable.  I  am  afraid  I  can- 
not make  it  quite  plain  to  you  without  cuts  or  ana- 
tomical charts.  All  our  fellows  on  board  have  been 
practising  this  position,  but  without  success,  for  ten 
days  past  Well,  in  a  word,  they  watched  us,  following 
our  every  movement  with  curious  eyes,  not  standing  or 
squatting,  or  sitting  upon  their  hams,  but  perched  high 
up  upon  their  heel-taps,  and  though  so  weary,  they  did 
not  fall  from  this  extraordinary  perch.  They  were  all 
smoking  away,  as  I  have  said,  but  the  largest  number 
of  them  were  far  too  weary  and  exhausted  to  hold  their 
own  pipes.  These,  the  swells  and  the  officials  of  the 
town,  as  we  afterward  learned,  had  their  slaves  squatting 
in  front  of  them  on  the  ground,  and  upon  their  shoulders 


250  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

the  yang-bans,  as  the  officials  are  called,  rested  their 
pipes. 

Very  fortunately  we  soon  came  across  a  Russian,  who 
said  he  was  trading  in  furs.  He  took  us  in  tow  and 
very  good-naturedly  showed  us  all  the  sights.  Every 
man  in  the  long  row  of  tired  ghosts  who  greeted  us  on 
the  beach  was  sweating  like  a  stuck  pig,  which,  in  view 
of  the  temperature  and  the  thickness  of  their  clothing, 
when  we  came  to  examine  it,  was  anything  but  sur- 
prising. Not  only  their  tunics,  but  their  balloon  cut 
trousers,  as  we  found,  were  heavily  wadded  and  even 
bolstered  out  with  pillows,  until  each  and  every  one  of 
them  looked  like  Humpty  Dumpty  of  the  circus  "  got- 
ten up  "  for  his  great  fall. 

"  You  see,"  said  the  Russian,  in  answer  to  our  looks 
of  blank  astonishment,  "the  heat  has  come  a  little 
earlier  than  usual  this  year.  According  to  the  Chinese 
calendar  the  great  heat  should  not  be  here  for  three 
weeks,  and  of  course  nothing  could  induce  the  Coreans 
to  put  off  their  winter  clothing  until  the  calendar  bids 
them  to ;  no,  not  if  they  should  all  die  of  heat  apoplexy 
in  the  meantime."  It  was  the  most  amusing  and  invin- 
cible non  possumus  that  I  have  ever  come  across  in 
travel,  in  history,  or  in  politics. 

We  then  wandered  on  into  the  town.  Here  the  main 
street  runs  between  rows  of  pigsties  constructed  of  mud 
and  straw,  which  afterward  developed  into  the  resi- 
dences of  the  Coreans,  —  the  people,  not  the  pigs, 
though  I  am  afraid  this  is  a  distinction  without  a  dif- 
ference. We  came  in  a  few  minutes  to  a  great  swamp 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  251 

covered  with  filth.  Opening  upon  it  were  several  low- 
class  Japanese  tea  houses,  in  one  of  which  we  took  up  our 
station  to  observe  more  closely  the  wonders  of  this  new 
civilization  that  is,  I  believe,  about  five  thousand  years 
old.  Some  of  the  officials  who  had  gone  down  to  the 
beach  to  greet  us  were  now  escorting  us  mounted  upon 
ponies  about  the  size  and  weight  of  Harlem  goats.  Each 
of  the  officials  required  two  minions  to  hold  his  steed  for 
him  by  the  ears  or  snout,  while  another  servant  walked 
by  his  side  and  held  him  in  the  saddle.  To  our  sur- 
prise our  Russian  guide  told  us  that  the  swamp  covered 
with  filth  was  the  market-place,  and  that  soon  the 
natives  would  assemble  there  to  show  us  "their  skins." 
We  were,  of  course,  not  a  little  curious  to  see  them,  for, 
swathed  and  muffled  in  their  sack-like  clothing,  with 
broad-brimmed  hats  pulled  down  over  their  eyes,  and 
with  great  spectacles,  rimmed  with  horn,  covering  their 
faces,  and  mufflers  over  their  mouths  to  keep  out  the 
air,  we  could  up  to  the  present  only  boast  of  having 
seen  the  tips  of  their  noses.  But  this  hope  of  a  plain 
view  of  the  Corean  was  never  realized,  for  a  few 
moments  later  the  merchants,  still  sweltering  under  the 
weight  of  their  winter  garments,  assembled  in  the  swamp 
and  spread  out  a  countless  number  of  tiger  and  leopard 
skins  before  our  astonished  eyes.  They  offered  them 
at  temptingly  low  prices,  I  can  assure  you,  a  leopard's 
skin  going  for  three  or  four  silver  dollars,  and  a  large 
tiger  skin  for  from  fifteen  to  twenty.  It  was  amusing 
to  watch  the  changed  behavior  of  our  men  toward  the 
Coreans  from  the  moment  they  caught  sight  of  this 


252  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

evidence  of  their  prowess  against  a  by  no  means  des- 
picable foe.  Every  man  jack  of  them  bought  one  of 
the  tawny  skins,  until  now  the  regiment  looks  like  the 
Hungarian  body-guard  of  the  Austrian  Emperer.  Our 
Russian  guide  told  us  that  the  country  all  about  Gen- 
san  is  as  full  of  tigers  and  leopards  as  the  woods  at 
home  with  chipmunks  and  squirrels,  and  how  the  tigers 
came  to  town  every  night  for  the  garbage,  and  some- 
times even  carried  off  a  baby,  or  a  drunken  man  found 
sleeping  in  the  road. 

As  we  were  not  sailing  until  sunset  we  immediately 
decided  upon  a  tiger  hunt.  In  order  to  make  known 
our  wishes  to  them,  the  Russian,  who  spoke  their  lan- 
guage fluently,  invited  the  Corean  officials  to  a  council. 
So  dismounting  from  their  war  horses  and  staggering 
under  the  weight  of  their  affected  infirmities,  leaning 
heavily  upon  the  shoulders  of  their  servants,  they  formed 
a  semicircle  around  us,  taking  up,  as  they  did  so,  their 
uniform  position,  perched  upon  their  heel-taps,  and  now 
a  long  and  noisy  powwow  ensued. 

In  about  half  an  hour  the  Russian  informed  us 
that  the  council  had  reached  a  conclusion,  and  it  was 
to  the  effect  that  it  was  impossible  to  have  either  a  tiger 
or  a  leopard  hunt. 

"  Why  ? "  we  asked ;  "  we  will  pay  big  money." 

Then  there  was  another  powwow,  but  finally  the 
Russian  gave  us  our  answer. 

"They  say  it  is  impossible  to  comply  with  your 
request  for  the  following  reason :  the  Corean  sporting 
calendar  is  divided  into  two  seasons  of  equal  length. 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  253 

In  one  man  hunts  the  tiger;  in  the  other  the  tiger 
hunts  the  man ;  the  present  is  the  tiger-hunt-man  sea- 
son, consequently  the  hunt  that  you  desire  would  run 
counter  to  the  natural  order  of  things,  and  besides  it 
might  prove  dangerous." 

We  turned  away  from  this  solemn  assemblage  of 
stolid  clowns  with  a  disgust  which  you  can  imagine, 
and  this  feeling  was  only  increased  by  the  explanations 
which  the  Russian  hastened  to  offer. 

"The  man-hunt-tiger  season,"  he  said,  "is  during  the 
winter,  when  the  tigers  are  weakened  by  starvation  and 
are  hampered  in  getting  about  by  the  heavy  snow-drifts. 
At  these  times  the  valiant  Corean  sportsmen  dig  great 
pits  in  the  ground  near  the  drinking  places  of  their 
prey,  which  they  cover  over  with  twigs  and  saplings  and 
loosely  packed  snow.  In  the  middle  of  this  deceptive 
flooring  a  lamb  or  a  kid  is  made  fast,  as  a  bait.  Soon 
the  ravenous  tiger  scents  him  out,  and  with  a  tremen- 
dous spring  pounces  down  upon  him,  only  of  course  to 
fall  into  the  deep  pit.  When  they  are  assured  by  his 
roars  that  the  tiger  is  where  he  can  do  them  no  harm, 
the  Coreans  come  hastening  from  their  villages  and 
blow  him  to  pieces  with  their  blunderbusses  and  Chi- 
nese muskets.  Of  course  the  fur  traders  have  told 
them  that  a  skin  intact,  or  nearly  so,  is  worth  twenty 
times  as  much  as  those  secured  in  this  way,  but  no 
monetary  consideration  is  strong  enough  to  cause  the 
Corean  to  depart  from  a  course  which  the  old  custom 
and  his  notorious  want  of  courage  has  indicated  as  the 
proper  one."  .  .  . 


254  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE      - 

The  last  scene  of  all  in  this  strange  world  of  topsy- 
turvydom was  perhaps  the  most  amusing.  Two  of  the 
dignitaries  of  the  village  had  a  dispute,  it  seems,  over 
their  relative  shares  in  the  profits  of  the  skin  trade,  and 
they  had  been  wrangling  and  shouting  in  angry  tones 
at  one  another  for  the  best  part  of  the  afternoon.  Just 
as  we  embarked  to  return  to  the  Sherman  their  anger 
escaped  all  bounds.  Words  it  seemed  could  no  longer 
express  their  contempt,  and  as  we  saw  the  champions 
darting  along  the  beach  toward  each  other,  both  quiver- 
ing with  rage  and  foaming  at  the  mouth,  we  were  pre- 
pared for  something  more  forcible,  and  rested  on  our 
oars  to  await  a  display  of  the  pugilistic  art,  according 
to  the  Corean  dispensation.  When  they  came  to  within 
twenty  feet  of  one  another,  however,  they  halted  at  the 
same  moment,  as  though  inspired  by  common  impulse. 
"  Now  they're  ducking,  getting  ready  to  go  in,"  shouted 
the  delighted  soldiers,  who  were,  of  course,  making  bets 
on  the  result ;  but  no,  the  wordy  warriors  removed  their 
curious  fly  trap  hats  and  bowed  low,  with  the  courtesy 
of  Spanish  grandees,  maintaining  the  while  an  unbroken 
silence. 

"You  have  seen  the  end  of  a  lifelong  friendship," 
shouted  the  Russian,  choking  with  laughter,  more  I 
imagine  at  our  blank  faces  than  over  the  antics  of  the 
old  gentlemen.  "  They  have  exchanged  a  formal  bow ; 
they  have  taken  off  their  hats  in  contempt,  and  that  in 
Corea  is  the  one  supreme  and  unpardonable  insult." 
And  so  we  rowed  on  back  to  the  Sherman,  knowing  that 
there  are  things  in  this  world  hitherto  undreamed  of  in 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  255 

our  philosophy,  and  that  one  of  these  is  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  Corean. 

Outside  the  southwester  still  blew  half  a  gale,  and 
our  skipper  decided  to  run  before  it  to  Vladivostok, 
about  twenty  hours  farther  north,  the  Russian  Gibraltar 
of  the  Eastern  seas.  Once  there  we  shall  put  to  a 
practical  test  that  cordial  understanding  which  has 
existed  between  the  Russian  and  the  United  States 
Governments  since  the  dark  days  of  the  Civil  War.1 

We  tried  to  put  the  best  face  possible  upon  this  still 
further  postponement  of  our  arrival  in  Manila.  Though 
we  have  all  gotten  our  sea-legs  now,  and  our  other  im- 
portant organs  have  settled  down  to  business  under  the 
new  conditions,  we  are  one  and  all  heartily  sick  of  the  sea. 
Who  was  the  French  poet  who  declaimed  so  eloquently 
against  the  interminable  ennui  of  the  plains  ?  Well,  each 
to  his  taste,  but  as  for  myself,  I  would  rather  spend  my 
days  in  a  lean-to  upon  an  alkali  desert  than  in  a  floating 
palace  upon  the  ever  changing  but  monotonous  sea. 
Still  we  cannot  count  the  time  as  lost  that  we  are  to 
spend  in  Vladivostok,  where  we  are  to  see  still  another 
picture  in  the  wonderful  panorama  of  East  Asia.  We 
know  from  experience  how  long  it  takes  the  Sherman 
to  coal,  so  we  hope  to  get  an  insight  into  the  won- 
derful colonizing  and  civilizing  methods  which  charac- 
terize Russian  policy  to-day,  and  by  means  of  which  I 
believe  the  rule  of  the  Czar  is  bringing  so  much  of 

1  Here,  and  with  greater  frequency  as  the  correspondence  proceeds, 
Captain  Herndon  has  simply  taken  out  the  daily  entries  from  his  diary 
and  enclosed  them  in  his  letters.  —  THE  EDITOR. 


25  6  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

happiness  and  of  peace  to  the  savage  hordes  of  Central 
and  Eastern  Asia.  .  .  . 

We  were  again  delayed  for  many  hours  by  a  fog  off 
the  entrance  to  Peter  the  Great's  Bay,  but  at  last  we 
steamed  slowly  in,  in  spite  of  the  frowning  batteries  and 
the  dangerous  reefs,  to  which  we  had  no  chart,  — a  bold 
step  indeed  in  more  senses  than  one,  for,  as  far  as  this 
corner  of  their  empire  is  concerned,  at  least,  the  Rus- 
sians have  the  reputation  of  being  anything  but  hospi- 
table. As  we  learned  in  Hong  Kong,  the  admiral  of 
the  port  only  a  few  weeks  before,  had  ordered  three 
ships  to  put  to  sea  with  no  other  reason  than  that 
they  were  flying  the  British  flag,  and  consequently 
it  bored  him  to  have  them  around.  But  our  stock  of 
patience  as  well  as  diplomacy  was  now  exhausted,  and 
the  moment  the  sun  came  out  and  cleared  a  narrow 
lane  of  light  through  the  fog-banks,  we  steamed  in, 
trusting  to  the  traditional  friendship  of  the  Russians 
for  our  flag  not  to  be  blown  out  of  the  water. 

In  a  moment  there  came  out  to  meet  us  a  large  ocean 
tug.  We  hove  to  in  obedience  to  several  very  peremp- 
tory whistles,  the  tug  drew  up  alongside,  and  in  a  few 
moments  the  most  extraordinary  looking  creature  I 
have  ever  seen  hopped  out  upon  our  deck.  Though 
he  looked  like  an  undersized  anthropoid  ape  his  uniform 
showed  him  to  be  one  of  the  port  officers.  His  boots 
were  greasy  with  black  butter,  and  the  four  or  five 
hairs  of  his  mustache  were  stiffly  waxed  out  until  they 
looked  like  wires.  After  looking  over  our  papers  I 
must  say  he  was  exceedingly  polite  and  cordial,  and,  as 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  257 

soon  as  he  had  pointed  out  to  us  a  place  where  we  could 
anchor  without  danger  to  ourselves  or  the  submarine 
mines,  he  hastened  away  to  report  the  news  of  the  sur- 
prising arrival  to  the  higher  authorities  on  shore. 

We  were  more  than  interested  in  the  antecedents  of 
this  strange  looking  creature,  and  I  hope  you  are,  for  I 
am  going  to  tell  you  what  we  learned  about  him  the 
following  day.  About  fifteen  years  ago,  it  seems,  a 
Russian  exploring  party,  while  pushing  down  the  Sun- 
gari  River  into  China,  was  attacked  from  the  shore  by 
savages.  The  only  spoils  of  the  victory  which  they 
soon  achieved  was  a  naked  boy  who  had  been  wounded 
by  one  of  the  Russian  volleys.  The  Russians  carried 
the  strange  little  urchin  back  with  them  to  Vladivostok, 
and  there  men  wise  in  tongues  talked  to  him  in  Chinese 
and  Manchu,  Tartar  and  Gilyaki  and  Goldi,  but  it  was 
found  that  he  understood  neither  one  nor  the  other  of 
these  languages.  A  week  later  the  child  of  battle  was 
received  into  the  bosom  of  the  Greek  Church  with  great 
pomp  and  ceremony,  the  wife  of  the  governor  acting  as 
godmother,  and  of  course  he  was  baptized  Ivan.  He 
was  then  educated  at  the  cost  of  the  State,  and  when  he 
had  completed  his  studies  he  entered  the  civil  service, 
and  only  fourteen  years  after  the  day  he  began  to  wear 
clothes  we  found  him  assistant  port  officer  to  the 
great  Russian  fortress  on  the  Pacific.  Do  you  wonder 
now  why  the  Russian  Empire  grows  ?  They  may  close 
things  up  to  foreign  commerce,  but  they  certainly  leave 
an  open  door  to  talent  and  ability  from  wherever  it  may 
spring. 


258  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

I  had  read  the  story,  that  wonderful  story,  of  how 
Skobeleff,  after  the  terrible  slaughter  of  the  Turcomans 
at  Geok  Tope,  lassoed  their  chief,  Ali  Khan  by  name, 
and  then  presenting  him  with  a  gold  lace  uniform,  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  General  Alikhanoff  (if  you  please) 
any  division  of  the  imperial  Russian  army  which  he 
might  choose  to  command.  I  never  quite  believed  this 
story  until  our  meeting  with  this  foundling  of  the 
tundras,  who  has  risen  to  high  rank  in  the  way  I  have 
described,  and  if  but  half  we  heard  of  the  services  he 
had  rendered  be  true,  he  is  one  of  the  most  useful 
servants  of  the  Czar  in  Siberia,  where  his  influence  over 
the  native  races  of  the  Primorsk  is  very  great.  .  .  . 

We  had  hardly  reached  the  anchorage  that  was 
pointed  out  to  us  when  a  strong  land-breeze  sprang  up 
and  soon  blew  away  the  last  vestiges  of  the  fog.  The 
panorama  of  the  town  now  opened  before  us  as  it 
straggles  up  from  the  water's  edge  along  the  hillside 
to  the  crests,  where  the  flags  flying  reveal  the  presence 
of  otherwise  well-concealed  batteries.  The  settlement 
stretches  for  about  four  miles  round  the  bay ;  some  of 
the  houses  are  of  brick,  a  very  few  of  stone,  and  by  far 
the  greatest  number,  of  logs  and  plaster  —  regular  back- 
woodsmen's homes.  From  the  sea  a  very  curious  effect 
is  made  by  the  board  walks,  which  form  the  only  pave- 
ments of  the  town,  and  without  which  the  pedestrian 
would  sink  knee-deep  in  the  red  mud.  As  they  run, 
in  squares  and  octagonals,  and  now  suddenly  off  upon 
a  tangent,  against  the  red  and  black  backgrounds  of  the 
mountain,  they  suggest  so  many  geometrical  figures 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  259 

upon  a  gigantic  blackboard.  The  channel  leading  into 
the  inner  harbor,  though  very  deep,  is  quite  narrow, 
and  before  it  broadens  out  into  the  bay,  where  the 
navies  of  the  world  could  ride  at  anchor,  you  have  to 
pass  under  the  direct  fire  of  at  least  twenty  batteries, 
any  one  of  which,  under  these  circumstances  and  at 
such  point-blank  range,  is  thought  capable  of  sinking 
the  stan chest  battleship  afloat.  Saturated  as  I  had 
become,  in  the  course  of  our  long  voyage,  with  the 
sluggish  atmosphere  of  the  East,  and  all  the  inactivity 
of  existence  in  the  sleeping  lands  of  Asia,  the  plunge 
into  the  bustle,  the  noisy,  restless  life  of  the  Russian 
settlement,  aroused  me  as  though  by  an  electric  shock; 
it  was  like  falling  into  an  arctic  stream  after  the  warm 
and  tepid  baths  of  Japan.  At  a  street  corner  I  came 
upon  two  white  men  dressed  as  laborers,  one  carrying  a 
hod,  the  other  pushing  a  wheelbarrow  —  to  me  a  most 
surprising  spectacle,  from  which  I  could  not  tear  away 
my  eyes ;  for  you  can  visit  all  the  East  Asian  posses- 
sions of  England,  France,  Holland,  Spain,  and  Portugal, 
and  never  see  the  like.  In  the  voyage  north,  whatever 
the  charts  might  say  to  the  contrary,  I  passed  out  of 
the  dreaming  world  of  the  slipper  and  loose  pajamas 
into  a  land  where  red-shirted  and  heavily  booted  pio- 
neers are  working  at  the  head  of  a  shaft  and  driving  at 
high  pressure  into  new  fields  a  thin  wedge  of  our  civili- 
zation. The  hills  above  the  settlement  are  terraced 
with  batteries  and  fortifications,  all  leading  up  to  the 
Great  Tiger  Battery  upon  the  crest  of  the  topmost  hill, 
from  which  the  flag  of  the  fortress  flies;  it  is  a  dirt 


26o  THE  GOLDEN    HORSESHOE 

battery,  with  invisible  guns  upon  disappearing  carriages 
—  a  good  example  of  the  unpretentious  simplicity  of 
modern  artillery  science.  Here,  and  all  about  the  for- 
tress, the  ground  is  covered  with  dense  thickets,  which 
there  has  as  yet  been  no  time  to  clear  away ;  they  form, 
indeed,  an  ideal  lair  for  big  game,  and  I  was  not  sur- 
prised to  hear  the  story  of  the  way  this  battery  received 
its  name.  Only  five  years  before,  I  was  told,  when  the 
soldiers  were  breaking  the  ground  for  this  fortification, 
they  were  disturbed  and  put  to  flight  by  the  furious 
onslaught  of  a  Manchurian  tiger,  filled  with  rage  and 
fury  against  the  men  whom  he  discovered  shovelling 
away  the  watch-tower  from  which  he  had  so  long  com- 
manded the  situation. 

The  morning  after  our  arrival  —  it  was  Sunday  —  a 
warm,  balmy  wind  from  the  south  blew  away  the  damp 
mist  clouds  which  had  clung  over  the  settlement,  and 
a  warm,  tropical  sun  came  out  and  shed  a  new  and 
more  pleasing  light  upon  the  gray  scene.  It  also  dis- 
closed to  view  the  unexpected  presence,  in  the  harbor, 
of  two  great  emigrant  ships  that  had  come  in  over- 
night from  far-away  Odessa.  Their  decks  were  bright 
with  animated  throngs  of  emigrants,  who  looked  eagerly 
toward  the  haven  so  long  desired.  Their  clothing  was 
as  many  colored  as  Joseph's  coat,  for  the  Russian  mou- 
jik  is  as  great  a  lover  of  color  as  the  Spanish  peasant. 
Men  with  great  bushy  beards  jumped  upon  the  bul- 
warks, and  clasping  the  ratlines,  shook  their  hats,  and 
raised  a  loud  hurrah  as  the  mist  clouds  were  swept 
away,  and  the  land  of  promise  dawned  before  their 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  261 

eyes  in  such  a  beautiful  light.  When  eight  bells  rang 
from  the  sluggish  battleships  that  guard  to-day,  as 
ever,  the  entrance  to  the  Mistress  of  the  East,  the  St. 
Andrew's  cross,  the  piece  of  bunting  which  the  emi- 
grants had  followed  around  the  world,  was  run  up  at 
every  peak,  amid  cheers  which  must  have  reached  far 
beyond  the  confines  of  the  settlement.  It  was  a  loud 
and  stirring  greeting  to  the  new  land  in  which  they 
were  to  live  and  die,  and  it  told  of  the  joy  that 
these  pilgrims  experienced  to  find,  after  many  trials 
and  much  suffering  in  passing  through  the  land  of  the 
dark-skinned  heathen,  and  the  domain  of  the  plagues, 
both  black  and  yellow,  that  here,  at  the  end  of  the 
world,  the  same  flag  is  flying  in  the  breeze,  and  the 
Greek  cross  rises  over  the  familiar  shrines  and  over 
all  they  had  left,  or  thought  to  leave,  behind  them  in 
Holy  Russia.  They  awakened,  as  from  a  dream,  to  find 
themselves  still  in  the  land  of  the  great  White  Czar, 
the  loving,  all-wise,  and  provident  father  of  them  all. 

Softly  the  sound  of  the  sweet  familiar  bells,  with  all 
their  burden  of  sacred  memory  and  greeting  from  the 
home  land,  with  all  their  power  to  reassure,  stole  gently 
across  the  bay.  Soon  the  sound  of  the  tolling  bells  be- 
came faster  and  more  insistent  in  its  tone,  calling  upon 
those  who  lived  ashore  to  give  praise,  and  summoning 
those  now  secure  from  the  dangers  of  the  deep  and  all  the 
heat  and  the  pestilence  of  the  terrible  Red  Sea,  through 
which,  even  as  the  children  of  Israel  of  old,  they  had 
passed,  upheld  and  protected  by  a  righteous,  omnipo- 
tent hand,  to  raise  their  hymn  of  thanksgiving.  And 


262  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

now,  as  we  watched,  a  crazy  little  craft,  bearing  a 
strange  ensign,  which  I  did  not  know,  and  looking  no 
larger  than  a  rowboat  as  it  danced  upon  the  crests  of 
the  waves  outside,  or  disappeared  entirely  from  view  in 
the  shadow  and  the  sweep  of  the  great  billows  that 
rolled  into  the  bay  from  the  ocean  outside,  steamed 
slowly  into  view.  But  I  was  the  only  man  in  Vladi- 
vostok, that  Sabbath  morning,  who  did  not  know  what 
the  ensign  meant,  and  who  had  not  awaited  its  coming 
with  impatience  and  anxiety.  Even  the  chubby-faced 
children,  who,  wearing  great  masses  of  tow-colored  hair, 
and  black  and  greasy  boots,  as  though  they  were  a  uni- 
form, were  playing  in  the  Svetlanski  with  the  grave 
and  quiet  air  of  frontier  children  all  the  world  over, 
—  they,  too,  were  awaiting  its  coming  with  suppressed 
excitement;  and  long  before  the  admiral's  launch  drew 
alongside  the  cranky  little  steamer,  which  was  bringing 
the  good  bishop  back  across  the  sea  from  Saghalin, 
where  he  had  gone  with  words  of  brotherly  love  and 
of  comfort  to  the  convicts  and  the  exiles  who  dwell 
there,  the  shore  was  black  with  people,  and  the  word 
"  Episcopus  !  "  "  Episcopus  !  "  fell  from  every  lip,  and 
drowned  the  moaning  of  the  waves  with  its  great  vol- 
ume of  welcoming  sound.  For  they  knew,  one  and  all, 
that  the  good  bishop  of  Blagovestchensk,  whose  name 
is  a  blessing  and  a  benediction,  from  the  Pacific  to  Lake 
Baikal,  and  from  the  Arctic  to  the  upper  Amoor,  was 
coming  to  pay  his  long-promised  pastoral  visit  to  this 
corner  of  his  fold  —  a  fold  that  is,  indeed,  as  extensive 
as  an  empire. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  263 

As  I  afterward  learned,  he  had  travelled  this  sum- 
mer six  thousand  miles,  and  his  pilgrimage  was  far 
from  being  over.  He  had  floated  down  the  Amoor  to 
Nicolavieff,  and  having  visited  there  all  the  settlements 
which  sleep  in  the  cold  gray  light  of  the  midnight  sun, 
he  had  gone  by  sea  to  Saghalin  and  cruised  along  its 
uncharted  coast,  visiting,  one  after  another,  the  convict 
camps  and  the  penal  stations  of  that  lonely  shore. 

Before  the  admiral's  launch,  propelled  by  the  oars 
of  twelve  sturdy  man-of-war's  men,  reached  the  beach, 
great  barges  black  with  people  were  floating  through 
the  waters  to  the  rhythmic  sound  of  Volga  boat-songs, 
and  the  sailors  and  the  soldiers,  the  emigrants  and  the 
Cossacks,  were  being  disembarked  by  every  possible 
means  of  marine  conveyance,  from  the  smart  steam- 
launch  of  to-day  to  the  birch-bark  canoe  of  the  native 
Yakuti.  As  his  boat  was  skilfully  steered  through  the 
surf,  the  bishop  climbed  upon  the  little  half-deck  for- 
ward, and,  as  the  keel  grounded,  he  stretched  out 
his  arms  across  and  over  and  about  the  strand  that 
was  black  with  kneeling  people,  as  though  he  would 
embrace  them  all  and  draw  them  each  and  every  one  to 
his  bosom. 

The  excited,  almost  hysterical,  throngs  now  formed  in 
line,  and  followed  the  bishop  as  he  started  up  the  hill- 
side to  the  heights  above,  from  where  the  bells  of  the 
cathedral  church  rang  out  their  joyful  carillon.  As  he 
strode  at  the  head  of  his  people,  I  could  see  that  he 
was  a  man  of  gigantic  stature,  built  in  a  heroic  mould, 
well  suited  to  the  herculean  task  that  the  almost  bound- 


264  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

less  extent  of  his  bishopric  imposes.  He  wore  his  hair 
long,  uncut,  and  untrimmed,  like  the  Nazarite.  It  was 
dark  red,  and  fell  like  a  lion's  mane  over  his  brawny 
shoulders.  He  walked  with  the  stride  of  a  Crusader, 
surrounded,  as  he  went,  by  half  a  dozen  priests,  all 
wearing  the  purple  robes  in  which  they  were  to  cele- 
brate the  services  of  the  day.  The  procession  as  it 
advanced  moved  more  slowly,  for  the  bishop's  progress 
was  now  impeded  by  the  ever  growing  press  of  people, 
who  thronged  the  unpaved  streets,  lined  throughout 
with  frame  or  brick  houses,  all  alike,  at  least  in  being 
incomplete  and  unpainted.  And  the  people  formed  in 
lines  upon  either  side  of  him  as  he  passed,  bending  for- 
ward and  kissing  the  great  seal-ring  he  wore  upon  the 
finger  of  his  right  hand,  that  was  always  extended.  It 
was  a  strange  and  varied  world  this.  All  sorts  and  con- 
ditions of  men  had  come  to  greet  the  bishop,  from 
the  admirals  (there  must  have  been  three  at  least)  in 
gold  lace  and  gorgeous  epaulets  to  the  emigrants  in 
coarse  and  ragged  clothing,  with  the  roar  of  the  sea 
still  in  their  ears,  and  the  roll  of  the  waves  still  per- 
ceptible under  their  feet.  All  the  races  and  the  castes 
that  dwell  in  the  maritime  province  were  represented, 
from  the  civic  dignitaries  in  black  cap  and  sombre  gown 
to  the  wretched  little  Goldies  and  Yakuti,  the  remnants 
of  the  native  races,  who  came  to  greet  the  bishop, 
their  scrawny  limbs  smeared  with  rancid  butter  in  honor 
of  the  occasion.  And  in  the  crowds  that  pushed  and 
shoved  for  position,  there  was  a  captain  of  one  of  the 
Corean  colonies  which  the  Russians  are  planting  along 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  265 

the  Tiumen,  who,  from  the  way  in  which  he  wore  his 
gold  lace,  and  kicked  the  Goldies  who  got  in  his  way, 
and  kissed  the  bishop's  hand  with  unction,  was  a  most 
striking  triumph  for  orthodoxy  and  Russification.1 

In  the  midst  of  this  throng,  so  varied  in  costume  and 
cast  of  features,  the  bishop  came  upon  a  gang  of  con- 
victs who,  on  their  way  to  the  railway  station,  had  been 
mercifully  allowed  to  await  the  passing  of  the  good 
man.  They  were  all  clothed  alike  in  garments  of  a 
dull,  dirt-brown  color.  About  their  feet  hung  loosely 
chains  that  were  not  very  heavy,  but  so  arranged  as  to 
prevent  them  from  assuming  any  but  a  short  and  shuf- 
fling gait,  which  quite  precluded  the  possibility  of  es- 
.  cape.  Upon  the  backs  of  the  tunics  which  they  wore 
was  dyed  in  black  an  ace  of  diamonds,  and  their  hair 
upon  the  left  side  of  the  head  was  almost  invariably 
close-shaven,  while  on  the  other  allowed  to  grow  long, 
luxuriant,  and  unshorn.  A  most  repulsive  disfigure- 
ment, but  one  which  is  said  to  prevent  more  escapes 
of  convicts  than  do  the  detaining  chains,  and  of  course 
it  is  most  useful  in  identifying  those  who  are  recaptured. 
Above  the  ace  of  diamonds  on  the  back  of  the  tunic 
stands  a  number  in  lieu  of  a  name,  which  the  convict 
leaves  behind  him  in  the  central  station  of  the  district 
to  which  he  is  assigned.  Their  wrists  were,  with  one  or 
two  exceptions,  free  of  manacles,  and  as  he  came  toward 


1  Great  as  are  the  miracles  which  Russian  faith  and  persistency  has 
wrought  in  Siberia,  the  greatest  of  these  is  the  way  in  which  the  Russian 
has  not  only  made  the  Corean  go  to  work,  but  to  grin  and  seem  to 
like  it.  — THE  EDITOR. 


266  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

them  many  stretched  out  their  hand  toward  the  stern  and 
yet  kindly  face  of  the  Episcopus.  I  was  glad  to  see  that 
as  the  bishop  approached  them,  "the  unfortunates," 
which  is  the  kindly  word  by  which  the  convicts  are 
known  in  Siberia,  he  walked  more  slowly  and  lingered 
longer  in  the  midst  of  them  than  he  did  with  the  free, 
and  that  he  enveloped  them,  one  and  all,  with  the  same 
kindly,  benevolent  look  which  he  had  for  all  his  sheep, 
whether  the  fleece  of  their  growing  was  white  or  black. 

As  we  approached  the  cathedral,  there  rang  out  to 
meet  us  a  song  of  thanksgiving  and  a  Te  Deum  of 
praise.  The  church  was  now  thronged  with  the  eager 
worshippers,  and  even  the  great  bare  graveyard  that 
surrounds  it,  with  but  a  single  lonely  mound,  the 
resting-place  of  some  unfortunate  who  had,  indeed, 
looked  from  Pisgah,  but  was  cut  down  as  he  walked 
toward  the  land  of  promise,  was  far  too  small  to  hold 
the  living  multitudes — the  many  who  will  be  lying 
there  so  still  before  that  wilderness  that  opens  before 
them  shall  be  made  by  their  labor  to  blossom  like  the 
rose.  It  was  a  sunlit  scene  of  vigorous,  hopeful  pio- 
neer life,  over  which  the  struggle  and  the  defeats  of  the 
days  that  are  to  come  could  cast  no  shadow,  —  those 
sombre  gray  days  which  are  to  dawn  in  the  wilderness 
where  the  mighty  rivers  roll  on  amid  the  trackless  wastes 
of  the  tundras  that  have  no  end. 

Lighting  his  candle  at  the  main  altar,  followed  by  his 
priests,  and  heralded  by  songs  of  thanksgiving,  the 
bishop  walked  with  slow  and  measured  tread  through 
the  long  dim  aisles,  lighting  the  tapers  that  stood  before 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  267 

each  shrine  as  he  went.  This  new  soft  light  dispelled 
the  hazy  clouds  of  incense  and  lit  up  the  familiar  fea- 
tures of  the  sacred  ikons  which  the  humble  multitude  of 
emigrant  moujiks  who  followed  in  his  wake  had  thought 
to  leave  at  home  and  see  no  more. 

"  Why,  there  is  St.  Cyril,"  whispered  a  little  boy,  as 
the  shadows  faded  before  the  light,  and  the  image  of 
the  apostle  to  the  Slavs  grew  plainer;  for  all  answer 
his  father  pulls  his  ear  and  tells  him  he  must  not  speak 
so  loud.  But  his  mother's  lips  trembled  and  her  soft 
gray  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Yes,  there  was  St.  Cyril, 
smiling  upon  them  and  protecting  them,  just  as  in  Holy 
Russia.  And  others,  who  were  not  little  boys,  but  great 
bearded  men,  and  women  who  had  come  through  the 
lands  of  the  grinning  idols,  were  glad,  too,  to  see  again 
the  familiar  faces  of  the  saints,  and  after  seeing  them 
the  great  bleak  land  was  less  fearful  and  strange  to 
look  out  upon. 

After  a  few  minutes  the  Episcopus  came  from  behind 
the  wall,  which  in  the  Russian  churches  screens  the 
sanctuary  from  the  eyes  of  the  congregation,  and  spoke 
to  them  in  simple  words  which  came  from,  and  went 
directly  to,  the  heart.  The  sonorous  tones  of  his  voice 
rang  through  the  church  and  beyond,  reaching  the  ear 
of  his  most  distant  listeners  by  the  fresh  grave  in  the 
great  bare  cemetery.  Exhausted  and  completely  worn 
out  by  the  excitement  of  the  day,  the  strange  scenes 
and  the  climb  up  the  hillside  after  all  the  months  they 
had  spent  cooped  up  between  the  decks  on  shipboard, 
many  of  the  emigrants  now  fell,  prostrated  by  fatigue,  on 


268  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

the  stone  flaggings  of  the  isles,  and  there  they  listened 
to  the  words  he  spoke.  He  conjured  them  to  remember 
that  now,  for  one  short  happy  moment,  their  trials  were 
at  an  end.  He  begged  that  they  should  remember  in 
prayer  Him  who  had  led  them  safely  to  the  land  which 
in  His  mercy  He  had  prepared  for  them.  The  service 
was  concluded  with  that  most  beautiful  and  catholic 
prayer,  which  might  so  well  be  translated  from  the  old 
Slavic  into  every  tongue  that  is  spoken  in  our  religious 
Babel.  With  impressive  earnestness  he  prayed  that  the 
blessing  of  God's  favor  and  of  His  guidance  might  be 
extended  not  only  to  His  children  of  the  orthodox  fold, 
but  to  all  Christians,  and  in  no  less  a  degree  to  all  human 
beings  created  in  the  image  of  God. 

Throughout  the  long  summer  afternoon  the  bands  of 
bearded  men,  of  tall,  deep-chested  women,  of  yellow- 
haired  children,  climbed  the  hilltop  to  the  sanctuary  and 
took  rest  and  comfort  in  the  light  of  the  familiar  faces, 
in  the  goodly  fellowship  of  the  saints.  Before  each 
shrine  they  would  kneel  and  kiss  the  cold  stone  flagging, 
as  though  it  were  instinct  with  love,  and  then  move 
slowly  on  to  the  next.  But  before  the  shrine  of  their 
patron,  that  saint  whose  particular  protection  and  es- 
pecial favor  had  been  invoked  by  the  pilgrim  family, 
a  longer  halt  was  made  and  a  longer  prayer  said,  and 
only  as  the  dying  light  of  the  passing  day  grew  fainter, 
the  pilgrim  mothers  drew  out  from  their  kerchiefs  two 
candles,  and  while  their  big-eyed,  wondering  children 
clung  to  their  skirts,  they  lit  the  slender  tapers  at  the 
great  candle  which  stood  before  each  shrine,  burning 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  269 

lower  and  lower  as  the  darkness  of  the  evening  grew 
deeper  and  deeper.  One  of  these  candles  they  would 
leave  burning  as  an  humble  votive  offering  before  the 
ikon  of  their  special  trust  and  love ;  the  other,  after  it 
had  burned  for  a  few  minutes,  the  mother  would  snuff 
with  trembling  fingers,  and  taking  it  from  the  altar, 
where,  for  a  few  short  moments,  it  had  shed  its  silver 
light  over  the  familiar  features  of  the  patron,  carry  it 
away  to  her  home  in  the  barracks,  or  in  the  ship  —  the 
most  precious  treasure  of  her  little  stock  of  precious 
things.  This  candle  is  preserved  until  the  weary  wan- 
derings of  the  pilgrim  family  are  over,  and  they  have 
reached  the  home  allotted  to  them,  somewhere  in  the 
frozen  north,  or  down  in  the  valley  of  the  upper  Amoor, 
where  the  sky  is  blue  and  the  air  balmy  as  in  the  sunny 
Caucasus.  There,  when  the  little  mud  and  log  hut  is 
built  and  the  family  god,  the  image  of  the  patron  saint, 
unpacked  and  reinstalled  as  the  presiding  and  guiding 
spirit  of  their  humble  home,  this  candle  and  another 
brought  from  their  place  of  worship  in  Russia  will  be 
lit  on  the  day  when  first  a  blessing  is  invoked  upon  the 
virgin  soil  they  are  about  to  break,  and  upon  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  in  stem,  merciless  conditions  upon 
which  they  are  about  to  engage. 

It  seemed  to  me  as  I  watched  this  scene,  unconsciously 
but  yet  inspired  by  the  same  spirit,  the  Russian  moujik 
is  carrying  into  these  waste  places  of  the  world  to-day 
the  beautiful  allegory  of  the  Greek  colonist  of  old,  who, 
when  he  left  his  home  and  went  out  of  the  gates  of  the 
city  where  he  was  born,  whether  he  went  toward  the 


270  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

Western  world  of  Massilia  or  to  Antioch  in  the  East, 
carried  with  him  as  his  most  precious  treasure  a  spark 
of  the  sacred  fire  which  burned  before  the  altars  of  his 
fathers  in  the  place  where  he  first  saw  the  light  of 
day.  .  .  . 

But  to  return  to  matters  which  more  closely  concern 
the  Sherman.  The  request  for  coal,  which  the  colonel 
made  to  the  authorities  immediately  upon  our  arrival, 
was  honored  in  the  most  liberal  manner  possible.  The 

ranking  naval  officer  in  the  port  was  Admiral  A , 

who,  to  put  it  mildly,  did  everything  in  his  power  to 
provide  us  not  only  with  the  necessities  which  we  re- 
quired, but  with  not  a  few  luxuries.  What  a  small 
world  it  is,  to  be  sure !  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  the  .admi- 
ral, being  frequently  sent  to  his  office,  and  one  day  I  sup- 
pose he  noticed  the  expression  of  surprise  which  I  could 
not  conceal,  try  as  I  might,  at  the  great  pains  which 
he  was  taking  to  entertain  a  regiment  of  unimportant 
infantry  soldiers  who  had,  as  it  were,  strayed  upon  his 
range. 

"  I  must  tell  you,"  he  began — I  suppose  he  was  offer- 
ing this  by  way  of  explanation  of  his  generosity — "  that 
like  all  Russians  I  care  for  the  American  people  more 
than  I  do  for  any  other,  always  excepting  my  own,  and, 
believe  me,  this  feeling,  which  most  of  our  people  enter- 
tain, is  not  mere  sentiment,  as  the  English  maintain,  and 
destined  to  disappear  the  moment  the  most  autocratic  and 
the  most  democratic  governments  of  the  world  come 
into  close  contact,  and  consequently  in  conflict  of  inter- 
ests. You  see  this  conclusion  might  prove  correct  if 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  271 

the  statement  of  fact  upon  which  it  is  based  were  not 
so  absolutely  without  foundation.  The  Government  of 
the  United  States  is  not  more  democratic  than  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Russia,  however  much  publicists  with  a 
strong  anti-Russian  bias  may  preach  to  the  contrary. 
Both  are  democracies,  and  both  are  governed  not  by  the 
people,  but  by  an  aristocracy,  an  elite,  if  you  like  that 
word  better,  of  intelligence.  The  only  difference  is  one 
of  method,  the  way  in  which  this  selected  committee  is 
obtained.  You  doubtless  imagine  that  the  men  who  rule 
Russia  are  exclusively  creatures  of  the  Czar.  There 
never  was  a  greater  mistake.  The  men  with  us  who 
are  drafted  into  the  various  administrations  are  the  men 
who  are  required  by  the  situation.  And  while  our 
Romanoffs  have  not  been,  one  and  all,  angels  sitting  on 
a  throne,  yet  there  never  has  been  one  of  them  without 
that  instinct  of  self-preservation  which  is  displayed  by 
the  employment  of  the  very  best  possible  talent  upon 
the  affairs  of  State." 

The  admiral  soon  returned  from  this  excursion  into 
the  realm  of  comparative  politics,  and  growing  more 
confidential  he  told  me  of  the  personal  reasons  he  had 
for  loving  America.  "  If  I  have  been  of  any  service  to 
you  during  your  stay  here,  do  not,  I  beg  of  you,  go  away 
with  any  sense  of  obligation.  I  am  merely  acquitting 
myself  in  some  slight  measure  of  a  debt  of  gratitude 
which  your  countrymen  placed  me  under  years  ago. 
When  the  Pendjdeh  incident  had  so  greatly  strained 
the  friendly  relations  between  Great  Britain  and  Russia, 
and  a  peaceful  solution  was  despaired  of,  I  was  hurried 


272  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

off  to  the  United  States  upon  a  moment's  notice  to  pur- 
chase as  many  commerce  destroyers  —  a  type  of  vessel 
in  which  our  navy  was  then  very  deficient  —  as  I  could 
lay  my  hands  on.  While  I  had  the  Russian  treasury 
behind  me,  the  expectation  in  St.  Petersburg  was  that 
many  weeks  would  necessarily  elapse  before  they  could 
hope  to  hear  from  me  that  the  object  of  my  mission  had 
been  accomplished ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  thirty-six 
hours  after  reaching  America  I  had  secured  ten  vessels, 
and  within  three  days  they  were  provisioned  and  had 
steam  up  and  were  ready  to  sail  upon  a  moment's 
notice.  So,  thanks  to  the  American  way  of  doing  busi- 
ness, I  was  able  to  telegraph  St.  Petersburg  that  every- 
thing was  ready,  and  that  all  I  required  now  was  an 
hour's  notice  before  the  declaration  of  war,  so  as  to 
avoid  any  possible  conflict  with  the  neutrality  laws. 
With  these  vessels  we  could  have  inflicted  simply  incal- 
culable damage  upon  British  commerce.  As  you  know, 
there  was  no  war,  but  my  successful  mission  to  America 
made  me  an  admiral  ten  years  before  my  time.  Do  you 
wonder,  then,  that  I  love  Americans  ?  " 

After  this  we  were  not  so  modest  in  accepting  the 
admiral's  favors.  We  came  to  regard  his  residence  as 
a  club,  and  the  more  we  made  ourselves  at  home  there 
the  better  he  seemed  to  like  it.  There  are  still  many 
things  lacking  in  Vladivostok,  the  most  noticeable  being 
the  absolute  want  of  bath-tubs.  The  water  front  itself 
was  generally  preempted  by  the  Cossack  maidens,  who, 
with  no  other  protection  than  their  native  modesty  and 
their  long,  carroty  hair,  disported  themselves  at  all 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  273 

hours  of  the  day  in  the  surf.  So  we  made  a  requisition 
on  the  admiral  for  bathing  facilities,  and  he  turned 
over  to  us  his  tubs  and  his  private  steam-room  and  his 
embroidered  bath  gowns,  and  served  us  himself  after 
the  bath  with  iced  sherbet  and  other  strange  drinks, 
until  all  our  hardships  were  forgotten,  and  we  came  to 
the  conclusion  that,  despite  the  typhoon,  the  old  Twenty- 
first  was  still  sailing  under  a  lucky  star. 

I  now  secured  leave  for  three  days,  our  colonel's 
captain,  the  Cape  Cod  skipper,  having  announced  that 
he  would  not  be  ready  to  leave  port  for  four  or  five 
days.  Something  was  radically  wrong  with  the  engines, 
and,  as  it  could  all  be  set  right  here,  and  probably  could 
not  be  at  Manila,  it  was  the  part  of  wisdom  to  wait,  and 
be  patient.  I  went  ashore  on  the  first  liberty  boat,  and 
spent  the  first  day  in  and  about  the  emigrant  barracks, 
asking  questions  of  the  new  arrivals,  until  my  escort, 

Lieutenant  S of  the  navy,  who  had  been  ordered 

by  the  admiral  to  take  care  of  me,  was  worn  out  with 
fatigue,  and  the  emigrants  puzzled  and  not  a  little 
afraid.  In  the  long,  low-lined  sheds  which  stretch  along 
the  hillside  there  were  at  the  moment  at  least  eight 
thousand  emigrants,  recently  arrived,  who  were  making 
their  purchases  and  taking  a  short  rest  preparatory  to 
starting  out  for  their  frontier  homes  in  the  wilderness, 
which  they  were  to  win  for  civilization  and  for  Russia. 
In  the  first  shed  we  discovered  some  fifteen  hundred  Cos- 
sacks, men,  women,  and  children.  Down  the  middle  of 
the  shed  ran  a  broad  corridor,  opening  upon  which  were 
numerous  alcoves.  Each  family  was  allotted  two  of 
T 


274  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

these,  men  on  the  right  and  women  on  the  left ;  they 
were  a  fine-looking  set  of  people,  and  evidently  would 
prove  excellent  pioneers.  The  Cossacks  have  been  sol- 
diers for  centuries,  and,  as  they  still  are,  wards  of  the 
state,  very  much  like  the  Manchu  bannerman  in  China, 
and  the  Emhaznea  of  the  Sultan  in  Morocco.  They  do 
picket  duty  on  the  frontiers  of  China,  and  have  brought 
security  out  of  the  savagery  which  reigned  there,  but 
I  hear  they  concern  themselves  very  little  with  agricul- 
ture, and  not  at  all  with  commerce.  In  times  of  peace 
they  are  found  to  be  rather  lazy,  and  care  to  do  nothing 
but  fish  and  shoot  and  break  ponies.  But,  be  this  as  it 
may,  they  have  succeeded  in  keeping  down  the  maraud- 
ing Tunguses,  and  protecting  the  other  less  warlike 
colonists  as  they  till  the  fields.  They  are,  it  is  needless 
to  say,  always  ready  for  active  operations,  and  once  the 
outfit  —  the  land  and  the  rifles  and  the  ponies  —  have 
been  given  them,  they  become  practically  an  army  that 
is  always  mobilized  and  self-supporting.  These  par- 
ticular Cossacks  wore  the  blue  band  around  their  hats 
which  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  Orenburg  bri- 
gade. A  committee  of  selectmen,  or  elders,  had  al- 
ready gone  ahead  to  examine  the  land  in  the  interior 
which  had  been  allotted  them,  and  those  who  remained 
behind  were  contentedly  engaged  in  passing  the  time 
brewing  tea  in  their  great  shining  samovars,  and  in 
smoking  papiros.  One  of  the  Cossacks,  evidently  a 
petty  officer,  having  given  a  military  salute,  made  us 
very  much  at  home  in  his  alcove,  and  between  the  tea 
and  the  cigarettes  told  us  the  conditions  upon  which 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  275 

they  had  consented  to  leave  their  country  and  become 
the  guardians  of  the  marshes  and  the  fords  upon  the 
Chinese  frontier. 

The  alcove  and  the  corridors,  as  we  stood  and  listened 
to  the  starosta's  story  of  his  wanderings  from  Odessa  to 
the  East,  were  thronged  with  honest  looking,  freckle- 
faced  little  boys,  who  opened  their  green-gray  eyes  very 
wide  indeed  when  they  heard  I  had  come  from  America. 
They  took  a  delight  in  showing  their  fathers'  rifles, 
their  saddles  and  bridles,  and  the  samovars  which  their 
mothers  had  brought  from  home.  In  the  next  long 
shed  we  found  a  band  of  free  and  some  assisted  emi- 
grants, who  were  to  settle  upon  farming-lands  near 
the  Tiumen  River.  They  were  decidedly  less  warlike 
and  more  well-to-do  in  their  appearance  than  the  Cos- 
sacks, and  equally  amiable  in  their  reception  of  us,  and 
their  readiness  to  show  us  their  treasures.  Every 
woman  possessed  a  sewing-machine,  and  kept  it  in 
noisy  use ;  the  little  girls  were  darning  socks,  and  one 
grave-faced  boy  of  twelve  was  engaged  in  putting  a 
pair  of  new  soles  upon  his  father's  boots.  We  were 
about  to  return  to  the  settlement,  our  inspection  con- 
cluded, when  the  leader  of  the  Cossacks,  followed  by  a 
deputation  of  very  grave  and  serious  looking  men,  in- 
tercepted us.  He  carried  in  his  hand  a  Krynka  rifle, 

which  he   presented   to   S for  examination.      He 

hoped  his  Nobility  would  not  be  angry  with  him, 
would  not  consider  it  an  impertinence,  but  he  and  his 
brothers  had  held  a  meeting  in  the  shed  after  our  de- 
parture, and  he  and  those*who  were  with  him  had  been 


2  76  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

selected  to  lay  before  his  Nobility  their  grievance,  and 
through  him  to  seek  redress.  "  This  is  a  Krynka  rifle, 
and  a  very  good  one,"  said  the  captain,  as  he  fingered 
it  in  a  fond,  familiar  way,  "  and  one  has  been  given  to 
each  of  our  men  ;  but  in  Russia  they  promised  us  mag- 
azine-rifles, and  that  is  what  we  want.  We  are,  of 
course,  perfectly  willing  to  fight  the  Tunguses  on  the 
China  frontier  with  these  rifles,  or  without  any  rifles," 
he  said  proudly,  "  but  we  think  we  could  do  better  work 
if  we  had  the  magazine-rifles  that  were  promised." 

S was  greatly  amused,  and  that  evening,  on  our 

return  to  town,  told  the  governor  of  the  complaint,  and 
the  next  day  the  promised  magazine-rifles  were  served 
out.  It  was  a  great  day  for  the  Cossacks  of  the  Oren- 
burg brigade,  and  when  we  called  we  were  received 
with  shouts  and  hurrahs;  but  I  am  afraid  it  was  a 
day  of  evil  omen  for  the  Tunguses  down  on  the  Amoor 
River. 

The  following  morning  I  ran  out  upon  the  last  sec- 
tion of  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway,  which  had  only 
been  completed  as  far  as  Iman.  This  is  a  small  settle- 
ment buzzing  with  sawmills,  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  from  the  sea  on  the  banks  of  the  Ussuri, 
one  of  the  great  tributaries  of  the  Amoor.  Iman  was 
as  fresh  as  paint,  I  can  tell  you,  and  here  were  fewer 
creature  comforts  in  sight  than  with  us  you  would 
find  in  a  prairie-dog  village.  The  settlers,  however, 
were  great,  sturdy  fellows,  and  we  found  the  whole 
place  literally  humming  with  activity  and  go.  The  heat, 
however,  was  simply  intense.  To  my  mind,  the  heat  of 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  277 

the  tropics  is  not  so  prostrating  as  when  it  is  hot  in 
these  high  latitudes ;  and  Heth  and  I  were  very  glad 
indeed  to  avail  ourselves  of  an  opportunity  to  escape 
from  the  settlement  and  take  a  sail  up  the  river  in 
the  direction  of  the  Amoor.  We  sailed  in  a  little  steel 
steamer  that  had  been  recently  brought  out  in  sections 
from  Belgium.  At  times,  as  we  steamed  along,  we 
would  hear  a  rustling  noise  in  the  underbrush  of  the 
bank,  and  now  and  again  catch  a  glimpse  of  some  soli- 
tary Gilyak  or  Goldie  stealing  through  the  forest  alone, 
like  a  hermit  thrush.  These  little  creatures  belong 
to  the  remnants  of  those  inferior  races  who  have  run 
their  course  and  are  now  disappearing  before  their 
vigorous  supplanters  like  snow  before  the  sun.  Now 
and  again  we  would  meet  a  flotilla  of  these  little  peo- 
ple paddling  mysteriously  along,  dressed  in  their  cloth- 
ing made  of  salmon  skins  and  their  hats  of  birch  bark, 
but  they  did  not  often  give  us  an  opportunity  for  a 
close  inspection.  The  moment  the  sound  of  the  power- 
ful screw  fell  upon  their  ears,  they  would  put  all  their 
force  into  their  paddles,  and  disappear  from  sight  under 
the  trees  that  fringe  the  banks.  And  toward  evening 
we  met  a  steamer  towing  five  or  six  steel  barges,  upon 
each  of  which  there  must  have  been  at  least  five  hun- 
dred soldiers.  For  several  minutes  both  steamers  slowed 
up,  and  there  was  the  usual  demonstration,  that  is  the 
dipping  of  colors,  the  exchange  of  gruff  hurrahs  for 
Russia  and  for  the  Czar;  and  then  we  kept  on  our 
journey  north  and  the  soldiers  on  theirs  toward  the 
south,  while  for  nearly  half  an  hour  after  they  had  dis- 


278  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

appeared  in  the  darkness  we  could  hear  the  great 
chorus  of  their  song.  About  midnight  we  came  upon 
another  and  a  still  more  characteristic  scene.  It  was 
a  construction  camp  of  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway 
in  the  midst  of  the  wilderness,  where,  lighted  by  pine 
knots  and  torches  of  turpentine,  we  saw  white  men 
and  yellow,  black  men  and  red,  or,  rather,  copper- 
colored,  working  upon  that  great  highway  of  civiliza- 
tion, which,  without  haste  and  yet  without  delay,  the 
Russians  are  building  over  the  waste  places  of  Siberia, 
—  the  interminable  steppes  and  the  yellow,  low-lying 
tundras. 

Shortly  after  midnight  we  left  the  steamer,  which  was 
bound  to  the  gold-washings  of  Blagovestchensk,  and 
landed,  to  await  the  return  boat  that  was  to  carry  us 
back  to  I  man.  I  think  this  was  the  most  bare  and 
inhospitable  looking  of  the  many  bleak  little  stanitzas 
we  saw  along  the  line  of  our  journey.  As  the  boat  was 
only  due  at  daybreak  we  rolled  up  in  our  steamer  rugs, 
and,  stretching  out  upon  the  rough  planking  of  the 
landing-stage,  prepared  to  make  a  night  of  it.  Soon, 
however,  the  starosta,  or  captain  of  the  Cossacks,  and 
the  village  priest  appeared,  with  profuse  offers  of  hos- 
pitality, and  at  last,  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  quiet,  we 
were  compelled  to  follow  them  up  to  the  village.  As 
we  marched  along  through  the  mud  of  the  road-bed  we 
could  see  in  the  moonlight  that  all  the  houses  were  in 
course  of  construction,  and  that  as  yet  they  were  all 
roofless,  a  circumstance  that  surprised  us  less  when  we 
heard  that  this  settlement  of  Dondakoff-Korsakoff  was 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  279 

only  five  weeks  old.  At  last  we  came  to  a  halt  in  front 
of  a  log-cabin  considerably  larger  than  the  rest.  It  was 
of  strange  octagonal  shape  and  surmounted  by  a  Greek 
cross,  and  to  our  surprise  the  building  could  boast  of 
a  roof.  The  priest  unlocked  the  door,  and  with  one 
hand  upon  his  great  shepherd's  crook,  and  the  „  other 
outstretched  in  a  gesture  of  invitation,  he  said,  with  im- 
pressive dignity  of  manner :  — 

"  'Tis  the  Lord's  house  and  the  first  building  which, 
under  His  favor,  we  have  been  able  to  finish  in  our  wil- 
derness home.  It  can  in  no  way  be  better  consecrated 
to  His  service  than  by  lodging  the  strangers  who  have 
knocked  at  our  gates.  Will  your  Nobilities  deign  to 
enter  ? " 

We  walked  in  and  soon  the  starosta  returned,  followed 
by  a  crowd  of  Cossacks  carrying  bundles  of  straw  and 
long  grass,  which  they  spread  out  upon  the  floor  for  us 
to  lie  upon ;  and  I  can  tell  you,  I  have  not  often  rested 
better  than  I  did  that  night  lying  upon  the  floor  of  the 
first  church  in  the  wilderness  of  the  Usuri. 

I  was  up  the  next  morning  by  sunrise,  looking  down 
the  river  for  the  steamer.  There  would,  of  course,  have 
been  the  very  dickens  to  pay  had  we  missed  it,  and  the 
Sherman  sailed  without  us.  It  was  not  in  sight,  how- 
ever, and  I  began  to  look  around  the  settlement.  Upon 
the  bare  ground  in  front  of  the  church,  wrapped  in  their 
mantles  and  greatcoats,  several  hundred  Cossacks,  men, 
women,  and  children,  were  sleeping.  They  were  soon 
upon  their  feet,  however,  and  crowding  about  us  with 
kindly  words  of  greeting  and  inquiries  as  to  whether  we 


28o  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

had  slept  well.  As  they  were  separating  for  the  day, 
each  man  going  to  his  allotted  task,  I  could  not  refrain 
from  asking,  as  I  looked  over  the  dreary  desolation  of 
the  place  which  the  cold,  searching  sunlight  now  laid 
bare  in  all  its  hideous  ugliness,  "  And  how  do  you  like 
your  new  home  ? "  An  old  man,  the  leader  of  the  little 
band,  thought  for  a  moment  and  then  answered  :  — 

"  Of  course  we  were  very  happy  and  comfortable  upon 
the  banks  of  the  Don,  and  we  had  the  best  horses  in  all 
Russia,  and  it  makes  a  man  from  a  horse  country  weep 
to  see  these  scraggy  Siberian  ponies,  and  it's  pleasant 
for  a  man  to  end  his  days  where  his  fathers  have  lived 
and  been  laid  away  in  the  ground  that  their  fathers  won, 
yet  when  the  great  White  Czar,  our  Father,  said  to  us, 
'  My  children,  Holy  Russia  haS  need  of  you ;  I  wish 
you  to  strike  your  tents  and  travel  to  the  Amoor,  there 
to  guard  the  marshes  and  the  fords  against  my  enemies 
and  yours,  the  Tonghaks  and  Tonguses/  why  we  came, 
and  gladly."  ...  I  can  tell  you,  the  words  of  that  old 
Cossack  have  rung  in  my  ears  many  times  since  I  reached 
here  and  have  had  a  chance  to  read  in  the  mail  some 
of  the  disgraceful  utterances  of  our  public  men  at  home. 
Still,  I  am  sure  that  in  the  end  it  will  be  found  that 
the  patriotism  and  the  sense  of  duty  of  an  uneducated 
Russian  Cossack,  who  is  practically  born  a  serf,  is  not 
superior  to  that  of  the  free-born  independent  Amer- 
ican. .  .  . 

At  Iman  on  the  following  morning  we  fell  in  with  an- 
other little  band  of  these  Russian  pioneers.  Some  were 
about  to  embark  upon  the  river  barges,  and  others  to 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  281 

break  a  trail  through  the  pathless  forests.  As  I  saw 
them  turning  their  backs  upon  comfortable  homes  and 
easy  lives,  to  become  a  living  bulwark  between  civiliza- 
tion and  savagery,  it  seemed  to  me  that  they  were  real- 
izing the  purpose  of  the  children  of  Israel  as  they 
announced  it  to  Pharaoh :  "  We  must  go  seven  days' 
journey  into  the  wilderness  to  make  a  sacrifice  to  the 
Lord  our  God,"  .  .  . 

Everything  is  ready  for  our  departure.  We  are  to 
sail  at  midnight,  and  I  am  taking  my  last  walk  on  shore. 
From  out  of  the  shadow  of  the  forest  trees  a  farm  wagon 
is  drawing  near  to  the  settlement.  Upon*  a  pyramid  of 
sweet-smelling  hay  there  sits  a  tall  raw-boned  frontiers- 
man with  a  rifle  by  his  side,  and  the  cap  of  a  reserve 
soldier  on  his  head.  About  him  on  the  hay  cluster  his 
wife  and  a  great  brood  of  flaxen-haired  children.  At 
this  moment,  more  clearly  than  at  any  other  time,  I  see 
the  difference  between  Siberia  and  the  other  Western 
settlements  on  the  East  Coast.  Here  the  Europeans  do 
not  come  and  go,  hurried  travellers  through  strange 
lands,  or  traders  who  work  and  toil  and  plan  and 
scheme,  and  then  some  day  sail  away,  never  to  return 
again.  In  the  English  and  French,  the  Spanish  and  the 
Portuguese,  and  in  the  Dutch  possessions,  though  in  a 
less  degree,  the  white  men  follow  each  other,  flight  after 
flight,  like  ducks  who  seek  the  low-lying  paddy  lands 
where  the  wild  celery  grows,  and  fly  away  when  they 
have  eaten  their  fill. 

But  here  there  are  no  transients ;  these  settlers  will 
never  go  back  to  Russia,  but  they  will  draw  Russia  to 


aSa  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

them  in  closer  union  with  every  decade.  These  pio- 
neers are  great  sturdy  fellows,  capable  of  bringing  the 
rude  land,  which  had  been  so  long  a  waste,  into  subjec- 
tion ;  from  their  loins  will  spring  a  race  of  men  born 
to  Eastern  conditions,  who  will  control  and  people  this 
continent  as  far  south  as  it  is  habitable  for  men  of  our 
race ;  and  their  women,  too,  are  women  fit  for  the  duties, 
the  responsibilities,  and  the  emergencies  of  frontier  life 
—  great,  deep-chested  women,  strong  and  quick  of  limb, 
wearing  spurs,  and  using  them,  too,  as  they  straddle 
their  ponies  manlike,  and  gallop  down  the  unpaved 
streets  to  do  a*  little  "  shopping,"  with  great  masses  of 
flaxen  hair  falling  down  over  their  shoulders ;  and  when 
at  home,  what  a  number  of  babies  there  are  clinging 
to  their  short  skirts !  .  .  . 

My  last  hour  on  shore  has  come,  and  I  am  walking 
slowly  down  to  the  landing-stage.  There  are  no  windows, 
no  glass,  and  no  shutters  as  yet  in  the  town,  except  in  a 
few  residences  of  officials,  and  so  in  the  humble  dwel- 
lings of  log  and  plank  and  mud,  which  are  springing  up 
with  mushroom  rapidity,  the  intimate  life  of  the  home 
is  open  to  those  who  walk  the  streets.  The  women  are 
going  about  their  household  duties  bright  and  fresh  and 
hopeful,  and  wearing  neat  white  aprons,  and  many-col- 
ored velvet  petticoats,  and  with  gay  kerchiefs  twisted 
around  their  heads  and  hair.  I  remember  so  vividly 
one  of  these  homely  scenes,  that  I  shall  endeavor  to 
describe  it,  because  I  believe  that  it  reveals  the  essence 
of  the  leaven  with  which  Russia  is  working  miracles  in 
East  Asia  to-day.  The  house  before  me  was  very  small, 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  283 

belonging  evidently  to  the  very  poorest  among  the  set- 
tlers ;  it  was  unfinished,  as  there  were  still  many  weeks 
before  the  season  of  the  great  cold.  Under  the  image 
of  the  ikon,  the  protecting  saint,  which,  smiling  down 
upon  the  humble  bed  and  board  of  the  colonists,  faces 
toward  the  door,  as  ever  in  a  Russian  home,  so  that  who- 
soever enters  may  know  that  he  has  come  among  those 
who  believe  and  who  work  and  rest  under  the  protec- 
tion of  his  covenant,  two  little  children  sat  upon  logs 
upturned  to  serve  as  chairs,  before  a  rough  deal  table, 
while  their  mother  cut  for  them  great  slices  of  coarse 
rye  bread.  Their  father,  who  had  just  returned  from 
his  work,  was  washing  the  dust  from  his  face.  Then 
he  sat  down  to  his  pipe  and  kvass,  and  a  smile  of  unal- 
loyed happiness  stole  over  his  features  as  he  looked 
about  him.  I  tell  you  all  these  things,  and  especially 
the  hay  wagon,  made  me  feel  like  getting  home.  .  .  . 
In  another  hour  we  were  under  way.  The  sinister 
battleships  and  the  great  fortifications  of  the  Mistress 
of  the  East  faded  from  sight,  as  the  Sherman  ploughed 
her  way  toward  the  south,  and  soon  the  panorama  of 
Russian  power  upon  the  Pacific  had  disappeared  alto- 
gether. ...  It  is  strange  that  I  should  carry  away  with 
me  from  this  out-of-the-way  part  of  the  globe  not  only 
light  upon  the  future,  but  an  understanding  of  our  past. 
It  was  not  until  I  saw  those  brawny  Cossacks,  those 
stalwart  moujiks,  with  their  implicit  devotion  to  duty 
and  their  steadfast  faith,  starting  out  with  a  hymn  of 
thanksgiving  into  the  wilderness  —  it  was  not  until  I  saw 
this  thing  that  I  had  a  realizing  sense  of  some  of  the 


284  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

earlier  scenes  of  our  own  history.  So  different  and  yet 
how  essentially  like  this  picture  from  the  coast  of 
Siberia  to-day  must  have  been  the  scene  when  our 
pilgrim  fathers  flung  their  banners  to  the  breeze  and 
raised  their  psalm  of  thanksgiving  upon  the  strand  of 
the  new  world  by  the  edge  of  the  forests  primeval. 
Even  as  the  poor  degenerate  Gilyaki,  with  their  tawdry 
feathers  and  greasy  skins,  looked  on  with  dumb  wonder 
as  the  Episcopus  led  his  stalwart  flock  up  the  hills  to 
the  holy  place  behind  the  settlement  of  Vladivostok, 
so  must  the  vanished  Indian  have  stared  and  mutely 
wondered  when  Barlow  landed  on  Roanoke  island  and 
claimed  the  new  world  for  the  Virgin  Queen. 

I  had  walked  through  the  silent  woods  of  Manteo  and 
listened  to  all  that  the  rustling  leaves  could  say,  and 
I  had  traced  out  the  lines  of  those  old  earthworks 
there,  which  Time  has  laid  so  low,  and  I  have  stood 
upon  the  deserted  island  in  the  James,  with  its  ruined 
chapel,  and  held  my  breath  and  strained  my  ear  to 
hear,  if  but  some  faint  echo  of  that  cry  of  "  Westward, 
Ho  !  "  which  was  raised  in  Devon.  And  I  have  sat  by 
the  hour  dazed  by  the  sullen  roar  of  the  sea,  as  it  surges 
back  from  the  Pilgrim  Rock  upon  the  gray  coast  of 
New  England,  but  I  never  could  realize  the  pilgrim 
story,  or  present  the  scenes  to  my  mind  as  they  were 
enacted  in  these  hallowed  places  of  our  history,  until 
I  watched  again  this  same  wave  of  conquest  as  it  broke 
upon  the  eastern  shores  of  the  Pacific.  Westward  to 
the  East  truly  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  that  in  Siberia  I  was  present  at  the 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  285 

laying  of  the  foundation  stone,  broad  and  deep,  of 
the  permanent  dominion  of  our  race  and  creed  upon 
the  shores  of  the  new  world  which  is  the  old. 

.  .  .  We  have  been  coaling  here  in  the  harbor  of 
Nagasaki  for  the  last  ten  hours,  and  we  are  all  as  black 
as  sweeps.  What  a  capacity  to  consume  coal  these  fast 
steamers  have  !  When  I  think  of  it  I  am  glad  that  I  am 
not  a  taxpayer,  or  rather  that  I  pay  with  my  person,  as 
the  French  say.  We  had,  it  seemed,  coal  on  board  and 
to  spare  for  the  voyage  to  Manila  five  hours  ago  at  least, 
but  the  captain  is  a  wary  bird  and  not  likely  to  be 
caught  twice  in  the  same  trap.  Lighter  after  lighter, 
loaded  down  with  the  soft,  dusty  coal  of  Japan,  is 
brought  out  to  us,  and  hundreds  of  pygmy  men  and 
women  swarm  up  and  down  the  side  of  the  ship  carry- 
ing the  baskets  of  coal,  until  they  are  all  as  black  as 
badgers. 

You  asked  me  to  write  you  fully  about  Japan,  but 
I  find  upon  reaching  here  that  my  capacity  for  receiv- 
ing impressions  is  exhausted.  Jim  is  experiencing 
much  the  same  thing,  and  as  I  write  he  is  holding 
forth  upon  this  subject  and  maintaining  that  the  mod- 
ern kodak  is  far  better  constructed  than  the  human 
mind,  and  in  a  sense  he  is  right ;  quite  often  of  late  I 
have  wished  to  put  in  a  new  roll  of  film.  Certain  it  is 
that  there  is  not  a  man  on  board  the  Sherman  who 
shows  the  slightest  desire  for  further  sight-seeing,  and 
while  the  polite  hotel  runners  have  been  coming  on 
board  all  day  to  announce,  after  beating  the  deck  respect- 
fully with  their  foreheads,  that  "At  twelve  the  great 


286  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

wrestling  match  between  the  champions  of  Kaga  and 
of  Satsuma  takes  place,"  or  "The  beautiful  wistaria  are 
still  in  bloom  by  the  Lake  of  Tatiyama,"  or  "  Danjiro, 
the  world-famous  actor,  will  appear  this  afternoon  in  a 
romantic  drama  of  the  Taiko  Sama  period,"  not  a  man 
jack  of  the  regiment  is  to  be  induced  to  move  an  inch 
away  from  the  shade  of  our  awning.  .  .  . 

All  I  can  tell  you  is  that  the  place  looks  like  the 
picture-books  and  the  fans,  and  this  was  especially  so 
when  a  shower  came  on  and  the  women  went  skipping 
about  over  the  mud  puddles  with  their  little  wooden 
shoes  underfoot,  and  their  oiled  parasols  overhead, 
and  the  peasants  came  into  the  market-place  wearing 
mackintoshes  made,  if  you  please,  out  of  an  infinite 
number  of  wisps  of  straw  woven  together.  But  in 
default  of  snap  shots  and  instantaneous  pictures  I  will 
give  you  —  it  is  considerably  easier  as  it  all  comes  to  us 
—  a  re'sume'  of  the  best  foreign  opinion  in  regard  to  the 
probable  course  of  Japan  in  the  near  future,  for  through- 
out the  long  afternoon  that  we  lay  off  the  port,  the 
leading  men  of  the  foreign  colony  came  out  in  sam- 
pans to  visit  us,  and  told  us  while  sipping  long  drinks 
what  they  thought  of  the  Empire  of  the  Rising  Sun 
and  its  marvellous  people.  Curiously  enough  the  best 
opinion  does  not  seem  to  suit  the  purpose  of  hasty 
scribblers  and  so  rarely  finds  its  way  into  print.  One 
and  all  our  informants  agreed  that  the  changes  which 
have  come  over  Japan  are  largely  superficial,  with  the 
exception  of  the  reorganization  of  the. army  and  navy, 
which  has  been  thorough,  and  it  would  be  well  to  know 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  287 

if  it  be  true,  as  our  informants  maintained,  that  the 
Japanese  have  merely  adopted  our  manslaughtering 
devices  and,  indeed,  improved  upon  some  of  them,  solely 
with  the  purpose  of  opposing  the  spread  of  Western 
civilization. 

"  In  the  main,"  said  one  of  our  visitors,  "Japan  stands 
to-day  pretty  much  where  she  stood  in  the  days  of 
Jemmu  Tennu,  or,  more  correctly  still,  as  she  was  when 
the  Empress  Jingo  invaded  Corea.  Then,  as  now,  she 
was  not  European,  nor  yet  Asiatic,  but  purely  Japanese, 
and  the  false  face  and  veneer  of  our  civilization  which 
she  assumes  to-day  is  for  the  furtherance  of  purely  Jap- 
anese policies." 

"  But,"  I  exclaimed  in  my  surprise,  "  I  thought  that 
our  godchildren  across  the  Pacific,  by  the  grace  of 
Commodore  Perry,  their  sponsor,  had  become  the  Yan- 
kees of  the  East,  and  that  they  fairly  worshipped  that 
stanch  American  sailor  who  brought  them  into  the 
comity  of  nations,  when  their  rulers,  hidebound  in  their 
own  conceit,  wished  to  keep  them  apart  and  far  away 
from  the  world  of  progress." 

"  What  you  say  about  the  cult  of  Commodore  Perry  is 
true  in  a  sense,"  said  a  missionary  who  had  walked 
through  every  province  of  Japan  distributing  Bibles;  "it 
is  true  that  at  Koya  and  at  Nara  and  perhaps  at  other 
shrines,  they  worship  and  almost  deify  Perry  according 
to  the  Shinto  rites,  but  it  is  not  the  Perry  we  know,  to 
whom  they  bow  down,  and  before  whose  image  they 
spread  rice  cakes.  They  worship  him  simply  because 
they  think  he  came  as  a  messenger  from  the  sun-god- 


288  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

dess  to  warn  her  children  of  the  danger  that  threatened 
them  owing  to  the  advance  of  the  Western  nations  in 
the  art  of  war.  They  worship  him  because  he  gave 
them  a  chance  to  prepare  for  that  war  which  in  their 
opinion  will  undoubtedly  follow  the  coming  together  of 
Eastern  and  Western  civilizations  upon  the  China  seas." 

"  Twenty  years  ago,"  continued  this  missionary, 
"  Marquis  Ito,  the  most  forceful  and  far-sighted  of  Jap- 
anese public  men,  went  to  China  to  warn  the  Chinese  of 
the  danger,  and  to  urge  upon  the  Pekin  Government  the 
necessity  of  preparing  to  fight  the  West  with  modern 
weapons.  The  marquis  was  received  in  Tientsin  by 
Li  Hung  Chang,  who  showed  some  interest  in  what  the 
envoy  had  to  say  and  even  made  an  effort  to  induce 
the  authorities  in  Pekin  to  receive  him,  but  without  suc- 
cess. In  those  days  the  Manchu  conquerors  were  too 
proud  and  haughty,  too  infatuated  in  their  own  conceit, 
to  even  listen  to  the  counsels  of  the  despised  '  dwarfs,' 
and  so  the  opportunity  was  lost,  and  to-day  China  is 
in  danger  of  division,  and  the  continental  powers  of 
Europe  are  in  alliance  against  Japan.  No  one  can  tell 
what  might  not  have  happened  had  China  followed 
Marquis  Ito's  advice,  and  started  at  that  early  day  upon 
a  policy  of  military  and  civil  reform.  I  think  it  is  just 
as  well  that  they  did  not.  Had  they  done  so  the  'yellow 
peril '  would  have  become  very  real  indeed,  not  only  a 
menace  to  us  out  here  in  the  East,  but  at  home  at  our 
very  doors."  .  .  . 

This  is  the  eve  of  a  great  festival  here  which  cor- 
responds in  a  measure  with  All  Soul's  Day  in  Christian 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  289 

countries.  Within  an  hour  we  shall  be  steaming  out  of 
this  beautiful  Norwegian  fiord,  for  such  is  the  harbor 
of  Nagasaki,  though  the  shores  are  covered  with  tropi- 
cal trees  and  flowering  plants.  I  find  myself  almost 
wishing  that  we  had  a  reasonable  excuse  to  delay  our 
departure  still  another  day,  and  witness  the  celebration 
which  opens  with  such  promise  of  picturesque  beauty, 
but  we  haven't.  To-day  there  came  by  wire  the  first 
hurry  call  we  have  received  from  General  Otis,  and  it 
would  seem  there  is  an  advance  movement  on  foot. 
Some  time  in  June  or  in  July  in  the  Philippines  there 
come  a  few  bright  dry  days  between  the  downpour  and 
the  deluge  of  the  rainy  season,  which  the  Spaniards 
call  the  veranillo,  or,  "  little  summer,"  and  the  telegram 
leads  us  to  expect  that  Lawton  will  avail  himself  of 
this  weather  to  make  an  advance  and  capture  several 
of  the  positions  from  which  the  enemy  have  of  late  been 
harassing  our  lines  around  Manila  not  a  little,  so  we 
have  time  only  for  one  last  look  around. 

.  .  .  Strange,  ghostly  fires  are  burning  before  every 
house  as  we  steam  by.  The  harbor  is  covered  with 
twinkling  lights  that  seem  to  swim  in  from  the  sea  on 
the  breast  of  the  returning  tide.  Innumerable  candles 
are  lighted  before  the  ancestral  shrines  and  before  the 
household  altars,  and  in  the  homes  of  the  rich  and  poor 
alike  the  moschi  cakes  of  baked  rice  are  spread  upon 
the  lacquer  tables,  at  which  no  living  man  of  flesh  and 
blood  may  presume  to  sit,  and  the  lord  of  the  house, 
whether  he  be  of  daimio  rank,  a  child  of  the  sun-god- 
dess, a  samurai,  or  of  the  coolie  class,  stands  with 


290  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

lantern  in  hand,  a  suppliant  before  his  wide-open  door, 
and  says,  as  the  wind  rustles  by  through  the  leaves, 
"  May  it  please  you,  noble  spirits  of  our  glorious  past, 
to  enter  your  homes  and  partake  of  the  rice  that  is 
spread  for  you  upon  the  unworthy  tables  —  may  it  please 
you  to  breathe  in  the  poor  fragrance  which  we  burn 
before  the  ancestral  tablets  which  are  only  bright  and 
beautiful  because  they  bear  in  gold  letters  the  imprint 
of  your  soul  names.  Deign  to  enter  and  tarry  awhile ; 
you  will  find  the  words  which  ye  spake  still  held  in 
honor  among  us,  and  that  we  still  follow  '  the  way  of 
the  gods.' " 

MANILA,  P.  I.,  June  5,  1899. 
MY  DEAR  GILL  :  — 

Well,  here  we  are  at  last ;  and  very  glad  I  am,  I  can 
assure  you,  to  write  Manila  at  the  head  of  this  letter. 
We  have  been  so  long  at  sea  that  a  rumor,  which  I  think 
your  friend  Sherman  started  among  the  men  last  week 
to  the  effect  that  the  Government  had  decided  to  con- 
vert the  old  Twenty-first  into  what  the  French  call 
"  Infantry  of  the  Marine,"  was  generally  accepted  as  a 
solemn  and  a  very  sad  truth. 

It  was  late  on  the  afternoon  of  the  3d  that  the  light- 
house on  Correggidor  Island  rose  out  of  the  sea  to  greet 
us.  Making  quite  a  sweep  to  the  left,  the  Sherman 
entered  the  Boca  Chica,  or  narrow  mouth  of  Manila 
Bay.  On  our  left  the  coast  chain  of  mountains  rose  to 
a  great  height.  On  our  right  lay  Correggidc-r  and  the 
swift,  dangerous  currents  and  the  very  tame  torpedoes 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  29 r 

upon  which,  in  the  first  instance,  the  Spaniards  relied 
to  stop  Dewey's  ships.  Glistening  like  a  diamond  in 
the  light  of  the  setting  sun,  we  caught  our  first  glimpse 
of  Manila  far  away  across  the  bay.  .  .  . 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  strange  it  is  to  see  the  old 
familiar  faces  under  these  new  conditions  and  in  such 
outlandish  surroundings.  Please  try  and  realize  how 
you  would  feel  if  you  met,  as  I  did  this  very  morning, 

Mrs.  Major  K ambling  along  through  the  dark  and 

gloomy  streets  of  the  inner  city,  with  her  latest  olive 
branch  coming  on  behind  in  the  arms  of  a  Sino-Tagal 

ama,  or  nurse,  or  should  you  see  Colonel  S of  the 

Quartermaster's  Department,  he  of  the  gouty  feet, 
being  carried  around  in  a  chair  by  Chinese  coolies  on 
the  lookout  for  a  missing  mule. 

The  first  day  it  was  hard  to  do  anything  but  shake 
hands,  though  there  was  and  is  much  else  for  these  same 
hands  and  many  more  of  them  to  do.  The  moment  we 
get  all  our  stuff  on  shore  we  go  to  the  front  to  take  the 
place  of  one  of  those  worn-out  volunteer  regiments  that 
have  rendered  such  splendid  service.  I  cannot  begin 
to  tell  you  the  news  I  have  heard  of  those  who  are  here 
and  of  those  who  are  missing ;  I  must  postpone  that 
for  another  time,  perhaps  when  I  am  sitting  out  at  the 
front  under  a  palm  tree  with  the  Tagals  popping  away 
at  me  from  the  surrounding  heights,  but  for  the  present 
I  shall  confine  myself  to  impressions,  and  these,  of 
course,  must  be  of  a  superficial  and  hasty  character. 
I  suppose  nothing  would  open  the  eyes  of  those  wise 
owls  who  maintain,  in  spite  of  the  evidence  of  our  his- 


2QX  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

tory,  that  we  are  not  a  colonizing  race,  and  that  we 
haven't  either  the  machinery  or  the  genius  to  admin- 
ister the  affairs  of  either  savage  or  semi-barbarous  races, 
which,  as  they  admit,  our  English  kinsmen  possess  in 
such  a  remarkable  degree ;  but  if  anything  could  open 
their  eyes  it  would  be  the  scenes  of  which  Manila  is  the 
theatre  to-day.  Here,  practically  the  whole  American 
army  has  been  transported  ten  thousand  miles  from  its 
base  into  a  country  of  which  not  one  in  every  hundred 
of  our  men  had  even  heard  six  months  ago,  and  yet  to 
see  them  you  might  imagine  that  they  had  come  out  a 
little  way  on  a  new  road  off  the  Santa  Fe"  trail  to  build 
another  army  post  and  protect  the  white  settlers ;  and, 
now  that  I  think  of  it,  that  is  about  what  they  have 
come  here  to  do. 

You  will  have  read  many  flowery  descriptions  of 
the  beauties  of  Manila,  and  there  are  beautiful  things 
about  it,  but  that  portion  of  the  place  which  has 
particularly  charmed  me  has  been  passed  over  almost 
unnoticed.  It  is  the  old  fortified  city,  Manila  intra 
muros,  which  Legazpi  the  Mexican  founded  at  the  time 
when  Santa  F6,  and  perhaps  St.  Augustine,  were  the 
great  cities  of  the  American  continent.  In  the  archi- 
tecture of  this  gloomy,  mediaeval  vault,  where  the  sun 
never  penetrates,  the  whole  secret  of  the  fall  and  utter 
overthrow  of  Spanish  empire  is  laid  bare.  The  walls 
of  the  houses,  as  well  as  the  ruined  fortifications, 
were  built  of  a  thickness  anywhere  from  four  to  ten 
feet,  and,  of  course,  the  first  earthquake  shock  that 
came  along  shattered  or  threw  them  down;  but  the 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  (^J03 

Spaniards  built  them  up  again  on  the  same  old  plan  as 
they  always  have  builded,  and  that  is  against  the  uni- 
versal laws  of  natural  development  of  the  forces  of 
nature,  whether  in  man  or  in  matter.  Of  the  natives 
you  see  on  the  street  the  less  said  the  better.  The 
Chinaman  is  the  only  man  that  can  be  depended  upon 
to  do  a  day's  work ;  for  the  rest,  the  natives  who  remain 
with  us  are  greasy,  slouchy  peons  who  will  have  to  be 
replaced  by  men  of  a  sturdier  fibre  before  we  convert 
this  city  into  a  second  San  Francisco  or  an  American 
Hong  Kong  on  this  side  of  the  Pacific. 

The  day  of  the  old  let-things-slide  policy  is,  I  hope, 
over,  so  that  when  you  come  out  to  Manila,  if  you  ever 
do,  you  will  not  have  to  blush,  as  I  have  had  to 
do  so  often,  at  some  careless  word  showing  plainly 
what  these  United  States  have  stood  for  during  the 
last  generation  in  the  eyes  of  the  white  residents  of 
the  East  Coast.  To  them  we  have  seemed  simply  a 
race  of  selfish  money  getters  "choked  with  cotton 
dust  and  cankered  with  gold,"  as  Wendell  Phillips 
said  of  Massachusetts;  and  from  what  I  have  seen 
I  must  admit  the  justice  of  their  criticism.  Out  here  in") 
the  East  we  have  insisted  upon  sharing  every  profit ; 
every  market  that  was  opened  must  be  opened  to  our 
people  and  to  our  flag ;  but  when  it  came  to  contribut- 
ing men  or  money  to  explore  these  new  channels  of  com- 
merce, or  to  police  the  seas  and  maintain  law  and  order 
in  the  Eastern  markets,  we  have  invariably  refused 
our  quota  and  shirked  our  share  of  the  responsibil- 
ity. Of  course  this  is  all  changed  now  and  it  seems"" 


294  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

to  be  recognized  that  we  have  put  off  once  for  all  our 
swaddling-clothes  and  become  more  nearly  citizens  of 
the  world.  They  se^e  now  that  we  are  inspired  with  a 
high  resolve  to  do  our  whole  duty  to  mankind  in  Asia  as 
well  as  in  America,  and  to  meet  promptly  all  the  obliga- 
tions which  our  preeminent  position  imposes. 

You  cannot  fail  to  notice  how  changed  my  views  upon 
the  Eastern  situation  are  and  what  a  very  different  man 
I  am  from  the  one  who  sailed  out  of  New  York  harbor 
only  three  months  ago  very  much  against  his  will.  Per- 
haps some  day  I  shall  be  able  to  tell  you  how  it  hap- 
pened. Perhaps  if  you  glance  over  again  the  pages  of 
my  diary,  which  I  have  forwarded  you  in  lieu  of  letters, 
you  will  see  and  understand  it  all  better  than  I  possibly 
could  tell  you. 

Now  a  word  or  two  about  the  campaign  and  the 
situation  with  which  we  are  confronted.  After  all, 
the  electric  wire  and  the  newspapers  do  not  annihilate 
space,  especially'when  there  is  a  press  censor  at  work, 
after  the  Spanish  custom.  People  at  home  in  or  out 
of  the  administration  have  not  the  most  remote  idea 
of  what  the  campaign  has  been,  though  I  believe  the 
Government  is  now  coming  to  a  realizing  sense  of  the 
situation.  Now  and  again  you  have  read,  as  I  have,  of 
some  dashing  move  of  Lawton  or  McArthur  to  clear 
the  country  in  front  of  us,  and  to  add  some  new  strategic 
position  to  our  defences,  but  that  is  all.  Very  few  indeed 
can  possibly  have  a  full  understanding  and  appreciation 
of  the  services  of  the  men  who  have  held  our  lines 
night  and  day,  practically  under  fire  for  five  months. 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  295 

They  have  more  than  held  their  own,  but  the  cost 
has  been  simply  terrific,  and  the  volunteer  organizations 
which  came  out  here,  anywhere  from  eight  to  twelve 
hundred  men  strong,  are  going  home  with  less  than 
three  hundred  effectives  to  the  regiment. 

The  one  thing  I  have  learned  since  I  came  out  here 
that  has  given  me  the  most  pleasure  is  the  fact  that 
everything  was  done  by  Admiral  Dewey  as  well  as  the 
army  men  on  shore  to  conciliate  the  Tagals  from  the 
beginning,  and  that  the  responsibility  for  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities  rests  with  them  and  with  them  alone. 
A  great  deal  too  long  for  our  prestige,  in  the  eyes 
of  an  ignorant  Eastern  people,  the  negotiations  looking 
to  a  peaceful  adjustment  of  differences  were  carried 
on.  Months  before  the  first  gun  was  fired,  the  Tagals 
had  begun  to  ascribe  our  forbearance  to  cowardice 
and  fear  —  they  are  learning  their  mistake  now,  a 
mistake  which  has  cost  them  dearly  and  will  cost  them 
many  more  thousands  of  lives.  In  regard  to  the  mili- 
tary operations  that  have  taken  place  since  February, 
when  the  first  shot  was  fired,  I  shall  not  speak  at  any 
great  length.  The  campaign  does  not  seern  to  have 
been  as  effective  as  it  might  have  been,  but  there  is  no 
use  crying  over  spilled  milk.  Many  of  the  forward 
movements  to  get  in  touch  with  the  enemy  and  give 
them  a  taste  of  our  quality  were  daringly  conceived  and 
most  brilliantly  carried  out,  but  there  has  always  been  a 
hitch  somewhere,  a  failure  to  make  connections  at  the 
vital  moment,  and  in  the  end  very  little  has  been  accom- 
plished. Of  course  there  is  no  lack  of  excuses  and 


296  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

explanations  to  offer  and  some  of  them  stand  scrutiny. 
When  the  fighting  began  there  were  only  thirteen  thou- 
sand men  around  Manila  and  a  large  portion  of  them 
were  volunteers  whose  time  of  service  had  expired. 
With  the  first  reinforcements  that  were  hurried  out  came 
the  rains  which  put  an  end  to  active  operations  on  a 
large  scale.  Still,  with  due  allowance  for  all  this,  much 
could  have  been  done  that  has  been  left  undone  and  the 
army  is  unanimous  in  asking  for  a  new  leader.  General 
Otis  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  careful,  painstaking 
officer,  but  he  has  not  proved  equal  to  an  important 
command,  as  have  several  other  general  officers  out  here 
who  are  now  serving  under  him.  It  is  conceded  that  he 
would  make  an  excellent  commanding  officer  of  a  small 
army  post,  that  he  could  run  Fort  Sam  Houston  and 
the  four  companies  stationed  there  right  up  to  the  han- 
dle and  there  wouldn't  be  a  saddle  or  a  bridle  missing 
from  one  year's  end  to  the  other,  but  those  who  have 
had  the  best  opportunities  to  judge,  those  who  have 
come  in  close  personal  contact  with  him,  while  they 
are  impressed  by  his  personal  worth,  his  industry  and 
integrity,  $.11  agree  that  he  is  incapable  of  commanding 
an  army  because  he  cannot  carry  more  than  a  thousand 
men  in  his  head  at  a  time  —  if  that.  .  .  . 

Now  I  come  to  Aguinaldo  and  the  insurgents.  It  is 
well  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  Tagals  did  not  take  to  the 
fields  in  a  revolt  against  our  authority.  They  took  up 
arms  against  the  Spaniards,  and  they  were  in  open  re- 
bellion when  we  came  into  possession  of  the  island  by 
the  Treaty  of  Paris.  As  we  took  over  the  rebellion  along 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  297 

with  the  other  fixtures,  it  is  not  unnatural  that  they 
should  invest  us  with  those  ruthless  qualities  which  they 
ascribe,  and  justly  ascribe,  to  their  traditional  enemies 
and  our  predecessors,  the  Spaniards.  Justly,  I  say,  be- 
cause even  I,  who  saw  a  great  deal  of  their  fiendish  work 
in  Cuba,  had  no  idea  of  what  atrocities  the  Spaniards  were 
capable  of  committing  out  here,  where  still  more  than 
in  Cuba,  they  escaped  the  observation  of  the  civilized 
world.  Happily  this  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Phil- 
ippines is  closed,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  dwell  upon  it 
now  except  to  admit,  in  justice  to  the  insurgents,  that  it 
is  natural  for  them  to  fight  to  the  bitter  end  against  a 
people  who  they  are  informed,  and  who  they  certainly 
believe,  will  prove  as  merciless  in  victory  as  were  the 
Spaniards. 

I  was  most  curious  to  learn  all  I  could  in  regard  to 
the  personality  of  Aguinaldo,  who  is  at  least  the  titular 
leader  of  the  rebellion.  I  have  talked  with  the  officers 
who  were  brought  into  daily  contact  with  him  during 
the  series  of  conferences  which  preceded  the  outbreak 
of  open  hostilities  and  I  find  them  not  unanimous ;  but 
the  best  opinion  among  them  is,  that  the  little  Malay 
dictator  is  neither  a  blackleg  nor  an  adventurer,  but 
simply  a  natural  product  of  the  mixed  blood  of  these 
islanders  when  stirred  to  hasty  action  by  restricted 
and  misleading  knowledge  of  the  outside  world.  The 
story  which  has  been  widely  circulated  in  the  United 
States  touching  the  large  bribe  which  he  and  his  asso- 
ciates of  the  revolutionary  junta  took  from  the  Span- 
iards, is  quite  true.  The  explanation  of  this  step,  how- 


298  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

ever,  has  never  to  my  knowledge  been  printed,  though 
out  here  it  is  accepted  as  a  satisfactory  one.  The  rebel- 
lion, it  appears,  was  on  its  very  last  legs,  and  the 
members  of  the  junta  sold  out  to  General  Rivera  to 
save  their  lives,  which  they  thought  were  valuable  to 
their  country,  and  to  secure  a  war  fund  for  another  ris- 
ing at  the  first  opportune  moment.  This  action  was 
indorsed  by  all  of  Aguinaldo's  associates,  and  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  this  fund  was  kept  intact, 
and  that  it  provided  the  sinews  of  war  for  that  rebel- 
lion which  broke  out  the  moment  our  war  with  Spain 
began. 

Of  course  the  young  dictator,  with  his  half-baked  mind 
and  limited  horizon,  was  greatly  disappointed  when,  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  war,  we  did  not  turn  the  islands 
and  the  islanders  over  to  him.  He  could  not  be  made 
to  understand  how  impossible  it  was  for  us  to  do  this ; 
and  the  very  extensive  offers  of  autonomy  and  home 
rule  which  were  made  him  in  a  spirit  of  conciliation  were 
rejected  with  contempt.  Then  I  think  it  was  that 
Colonel  Crowder,  one  of  our  peace  commissioners,  put 
the  situation  pretty  plainly,  but  not  a  bit  too  strongly,  by 
pointing  out  that  in  assuming  the  rights  of  sovereignty 
over  the  islands  we  had  accepted  duties  and  responsibili- 
ties not  only  toward  the  Tagals  and  the  other  tribes  of 
the  islands,  but  toward  the  whole  civilized  world,  and  par- 
ticularly toward  those  powers  whose  citizens  had  com- 
mercial and  property  interests  in  the  Philippines.  It  was 
remarked  to  the  young  dictator  that  the  Tagals  were 
an  infinitely  small  minority  of  the  population  less  than 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  299 

one-sixth,  I  believe  it  is  —  and  that  it  would  be  perfectly 
preposterous  to  turn  the  reins  of  government  over  to 
him  —  Aguinaldo  —  when,  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  we 
would  be  held  morally  and  perhaps  at  law  responsible  for 
what  ensued. 

"But  we  were  in  rebellion  —  in  open  rebellion,"  said 
Aguinaldo. 

And  then  came  the  answer.  "  And  so  were  many  of 
the  other  islanders  in  rebellion.  And  if  it  comes  to  the 
question  of  turning  the  islands  over  to  the  most  suc- 
cessful insurgents,  why,  naturally  the  people  of  Mindinao 
should  be  put  in  control,  because,  for  two  hundred  years 
without  intermission,  they  have  been  fighting  the  Span- 
iards, and  with  such  success  that,  during  all  this  time,  the 
invaders  of  their  great  unknown  island  have  never 
ventured  more  then  five  miles  off  the  beach."  Our  com- 
missioners, then,  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  were  author- 
ized to  make  known  our  programme,  which  is  to  treat 
the  Tagals,  the  Negritos,  the  Moros,  the  Bisayans,  and 
the  Ilocanos,  and  the  hundred  other  tribes  that  inhabit 
the  Philippine  Islands,  exactly  alike.  They  were  in- 
formed that  we  proposed  to  put  them  all  on  the  same 
footing  and  to  establish  and  maintain  law  and  order  in 
that  part  of  the  world  which  we  had  taken  in  trust  for 
civilization ;  and  in  conclusion,  the  only  bribe  we  had  to 
offer  was,  that  whichever  tribe  should  show  the  greatest 
aptitude  in  self-government  and  in  the  ways  of  peace 
would  first  be  given  the  largest  share  of  autonomy. 

The  result  was  war.  The  little  power  which  Agui- 
naldo and  his  associates  had  enjoyed  during  the  days 


300  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

of  the  rebellion  had  become  very  dear  to  them.  They 
saw  that  the  era  of  wearing  fine  feathers  was  over  and 
that  of  hard  work  had  come.  They  saw  that  there  was 
still  a  fighting  chance  of  successfully  opposing  us  be- 
cause, as  they  were  well  aware,  public  opinion  in  America 
was  divided  upon  the  question  of  accepting  the  responsi- 
bility which  the  result  of  the  Spanish  War"  had  imposed 
upon  us,  and  that  the  present  leaders  of  one  great  party 
at  least  were  not  ashamed  to  proclaim  from  its  platform 
a  policy  of  "scuttle."  So  the  junta  decided  for  war; 
those  who  follow  —  the  poor  devils  who  stop  the  bullets 
—  are  still  fighting  because  they  think  that  we  are  Span- 
iards or  of  the  same  stripe  as  the  Spaniards,  and  they 
would  rather  take  their  chances  fighting  in  the  open 
than  be  murdered  in  their  homes,  or  shot  down  on  the 
Luneta  to  make  a  Spanish  holiday,  like  so  many  of  their 
fellows  after  the  last  rebellion,  although  they  had  surren- 
dered with  the  promise  of  a  general  amnesty.  One  can 
have  a  great  deal  of  sympathy  with  these  poor  devils,  and 
at  the  same  time  recognize  that  they  are  not  "  embattled 
farmers,"  and  that  the  only  thing  to  save  the  situation, 
both  for  them  and  for  us,  is  to  give  them  a  good,  sound 
thrashing,  and  put  them  to  work.  There  is  one  thing 
which  I  was  glad  to  learn,  and  that  is  that,  when  once 
defeated,  the  Tagals  will  have  to  stand  their  ground 
and  take  the  consequences.  The  best  opinion  is  that 
they  will  not  retire  to  the  hills  as  we  have  from  the 
first  apprehended,  because  the  hillsmen  are  more  hos- 
tile to  them  than  we  are,  and  also  because  it  is 
said  that  the  lungs  of  these  inhabitants  of  the  swamp 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  301 

and  paddy-field  are  so  constituted  that  they  cannot 
live  in  high  altitudes,  so  perhaps  we  will  not  suffer 
from  dacoity,  as  the  British  did  for  so  many  years  in 
Burmah.  To  sum  up,  all  out  here  agree  that  "peace 
talking"  and  conferences  are  quite  useless,  and  only 
serve  to  strengthen  the  enemy  and  draw  recruits  to 
his  standard,  and  that  the  only  solution  of  the  situation 
is  to  be  found  in  the  complete  smash-up  of  Aguinaldo's 
army  at  the  very  earliest  possible  moment.  We  have, 
or  soon  will  have,  the  men  out  here  to  do  it ;  but  the 
leader  to  direct  the  movement  is  still  wanting. 

AT  THE  FRONT  —  NEAR  LAS  PINAS, 

June  8,  1899. 

.  .  .  We  came  out  here  last  evening,  marching  late  into 
the  night.  To  our  surprise  not  a  shot  was  fired.  What 
is  up  we  don't  quite  know,  but  it  is  evident  that  Lawton 
is  preparing  to  make  a  sudden  attack  with  that  swiftness 
of  movement  and  sureness  of  aim  which  are  the  char- 
acteristics of  all  his  tactics.  I  cannot  tell  you  how  pic- 
turesque are  the  surroundings  of  our  camp.  Travellers 
who  know  maintain  that  there  is  no  tropical  country  in 
the  world  more  beautiful  than  Luzon.  Some  praise  it 
more  highly  even  than  Java  and  Ceylon.  I  know 
nothing  about  this,  but  I  do  know  that  our  line  of 
march  is  leading  us  through  a  surpassingly  beautiful 
country.  We  carry  with  us  always  the  coast  range  of 
mountains,  which  every  now  and  then  rise  into  a  vol- 
canic cone  or  peak  of  great  height.  It  is  interesting  to 
know  that  according  to  the  seismographs  the  island  is 


302  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

always  quivering  and  vibrating  with  the  effects  of  some 
earthquake  commotion,  but  as  we  have  not  had  a  shock 
as  yet  that  we  could  feel,  these  conditions  do  not 
alarm  us.  At  this  season  of  the  year  the  whole  country 
is  more  than  well  watered ;  on  the  march  out  we  crossed 
at  least  a  dozen  streams  as  clear  as  crystal,  and  the 
water  was  very  good  to  drink,  though  it  was  not  as  cold 

-as  ice.  Incidentally,  though  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  scenery,  I  must  tell  you  that  the  canvas  shoes  which 

;  I  invented  for  the  Santiago  campaign  are  a  great  suc- 
cess out  here,  and  are,  I  believe,  the  proper  footgear 
for  campaigning  in  the  tropics.  They  are  light  and 
comfortable,  and  dry  out  in  five  minutes.  My  experi- 

}  ence  has  been  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  water- 
tight leather  boot  unless  they  weigh  about  five  pounds 
apiece,  and  once  wet  in  this  climate  they  never  dry  out. 
But  now  about  the  tropical  scenery  and  vegetation  I 
promised  to  describe.  Much  will  be  forgiven  the  soldier, 
I  hope,  writing  from  the  front  with  a  cracker  box  as  a 
desk  and  a  tomato  can  as  a  chair,  for,  as  you  know, 
when  you  march  with  Lawton  you  must  travel  light. 
In  the  scene  before  me  there  are  two  zones  strikingly 
distinct :  in  the  highlands  there  is  seen  the  sober  beauty 
of  a  temperate  climate,  in  the  lowlands  the  rank  luxuri- 
ance of  the  tropics.  All  around  us  the  pines  are  fringed 
with  feathery  bamboo,  while  up  above,  with  what  look 
to  be  bunches  of  fir  trees,  glorious  palms  are  inter- 
spersed, the  like  of  which  we  never  saw  in  Cuba.  Half 
concealed  by  the  hedges  of  cocoanut-palm  the  little 
villages  of  nipa  shacks  nestle  together  between  the 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  303 

green  rice-fields  and  the  sugar  plantations,  while  the 
gardens  are  filled  with  blossoms  and  fruits  of  many 
brilliant  colors.  Now  the  villages  are  deserted,  most 
of  the  shacks  burnt  down,  and  the  plantations  are  over- 
grown with  trailers  of  every  kind;  still  it  is  possible 
to  see  the  beauty  of  what  must  have  been  in  the  peace- 
ful days. 

You  know  it  is  the  little  things  that  count  in  this  world. 
As  we  all  learned  in  McGuffey's  Fifth  Reader,  it  was  the 
falling  of  the  apple  in  the  orchard  that  revealed  to  New- 
ton the  law  of  gravitation.  And  so  it  was  that  even  after 
the  whole  east  coast  of  Asia  had  passed  before  my  eyes 
as  in  a  panorama,  I  did  not  fully  grasp  the  part  which 
we  Americans  are  called  upon  to  play  in  the  working 
out  of  the  Divine  Plan  in  regard  to  this  neglected  part 
of  the  world.  It  only  came  to  me  the  morning  after  our 
arrival,  when  I  saw  the  transports  Sheridan  and  Grant 
steaming  into  Manila  Bay  twenty-five  days  out  from  San 
Francisco.  They  had  not  sailed,  as  we  of  the  Sher- 
man sailed,  all  around  the  world  to  reach  our  Eastern 
dependency,  which  has  become  our  Western  frontier. 
They  had  not  paid  to  pass  the  European  toll-gates,  as 
we  had  done,  and  as  our  commerce  has  been  doing  for 
the  last  hundred  years,  quite  as  though  the  Pacific  were 
an  unknown  and  uncharted  sea.  They  did  not  come  by 
the  route  which  the  Europeans  have  surveyed,  but  by 
our  own  trail  from  the  Pacific  coast  ports  to  Hawaii,  to 
Guam  ;  and  every  port  of  call  is  American  soil  until  you 
come  to  Manila,  where  we  stand  to-day  at  the  gateway 
and  the  cross-roads  of  the  Eastern  world.  As  I  saw 


304  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

them  come  in,  and  heard  the  rousing  cheer  with  which 
the  men  on  these  transports  hailed  the  flag,  it  was  as 
though  scales  had  suddenly  fallen  from  before  my  eyes, 
and  for  the  first  time  I  understood  that  we  were  not 
embarked  upon  a  venture,  that  we  had  not  struck 
into  the  "  wild  way "  that  Sir  Launcelot  travelled,  but 
that  we  are  still  upon  the  old  trail  —  the  world-winning 
trail  of  our  race  westward  to  the  East,  which  the  men  of 
Devon  started  upon  when  they  left  the  "  swan's  nest  in 
a  quiet  pool,"  and  ventured  out  into  the  trackless  seas 
of  the  Atlantic. 

When  Dewey  exclaimed  a  few  days  after  his  victory 
over  the  Spaniards,  "  I  hope  I  shall  never  see  the  flag 
withdrawn  from  these  islands,"  it  was  the  unerring 
instinct  of  our  race  that  spoke,  and  he  was  but  listening 
to  the  voice  of  command  which  sent  Spotswood  over  the 
first  barrier  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  Boone  to  blaze  the  track 
of  civilization  through  "  the  dark  and  bloody  ground  " 
of  Kentucky,  MacKenzie  to  scale  the  Rockies,  and 
Fremont  to  find  a  way  across  the  pathless  prairies,  and 
Lewis  and  Clarke  upon  their  daring  journey  which  led 
us  to  "where  rolls  the  Oregon."  As  Eppes  said,  "  How 
the  Old  Dominion  has  grown  since  the  days  when  the 
adventurous  Virginians  quenched  their  thirst  in  the 
waters  of  the  Shenandoah  !  "  What  mountains  have  we 
not  climbed ;  what  rivers  have  we  not  crossed,  until  now 
we  stand  upon  the  threshold  of  the  new  world  which  is 
the  old,  and  the  curtain  is  rising  upon  a  new  chapter 
and  a  new  scene  in  the  story  of  our  race.  What  the 
divine  plan  is  we  do  not  know ;  for  what  purpose  we 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  305 

have  been  raised  up  and  made  so  strong  we  can  only 
surmise,  but  can  we  not  say  as  the  heathen  Omar  did  and 
with  the  same  confidence,  "  He  knows,  He  knows."  .  .  . 
Taylor,  Lawton's  striker,  has  been  polishing  the  old 
man's  helmet  with  pipe-clay  until  it  shines  like  the  head- 
light of  an  engine.  The  dough-boys  regard  this  as  an 
infallible  sign,  and  say  there  is  going  to  be  a  scrap  ;  and, 
indeed,  I  have  only  time  to  close  with  best  wishes  and 
"good  luck,"  for  the  halt  is  over,  and  the  cry  comes 
down  the  column,  "  Fall  in,  forward !  "  .  .  . 

THE   POSTSCRIPT 

AT  an  early  hour  on  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  August 
8,  1899,  a  hurricane  of  violence,  unprecedented  even  in 
the  West  Indies,  swept  over  the  island  of  Puerto  Rico. 
For  fully  twelve  hours  there  was  not  the  slightest  abate- 
ment in  the  force  of  the  great  winds.  Walls  were 
thrown  down,  houses  unroofed,  and  ships  riding  on  the 
crests  of  the  waves  broke  their  moorings  and  were 
carried  far  up  the  shore  hundreds  of  yards  beyond  the 
water-line.  While  the  experience  was  not  an  entirely 
novel  one,  for  like  all  West  Indians,  they  had  ex- 
perienced hurricanes  before,  the  whole  population  was 
panic-stricken.  Being  without  the  habit  of  self-control 
and  discipline,  and  lacking  entirely  the  spirit  of  organi- 
zation and  concerted  action,  the  people  of  Puerto  Rico 
proved  incapable  of  meeting  the  great  emergency. 
Each  man  sought  to  save  himself  and  his  family,  and 
the  burden  of  caring  for  the  city  and  the  general  welfare 


306  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

devolved  upon  the  officers  and  the  men  of  the  small 
garrison  of  United  States  troops  that  is  still  retained  in 
the  Capital.  Thanks  to  the  untiring  efforts  of  the 
military  governor  and  his  staff,  who  worked  without  rest- 
ing, day  and  night,  order  and  systematized  relief  gradu- 
ally grew  out  of  the  anarchy  and  chaos  which  at 
first  prevailed.  The  wounded  were  cared  for,  the 
starving  fed,  and  those  without  homes  were  lodg«d 
in  the  army  barracks  or  sheltered  under  army  tents  as 
fast  as  they  came  in. 

In  the  first  lull  of  the  storm,  and  when  the  press- 
ing needs  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  of  San  Juan 
had  been  relieved,  the  governor,  Major-General  Davis, 
began  to  collect  all  the  available  information  and 
data  as  to  the  devastation  and  havoc  that  the  hurri- 
cane had  wrought,  so  that  he  might  the  more  intel- 
ligently prepare  for  the  work  of  relief  that  now  de- 
volved upon  him.  By  the  evening  of  the  loth  it  was 
ascertained  that  in  San  Juan  alone  about  fifty  bodies  had 
been  found,  that  the  wounded  were  not  to  be  numbered, 
and  that  at  least  ten  thousand  people  were  without 
shelter  of  any  kind.  Serious  as  had  been  the  damage 
done  in  the  city,  sinister  rumors  began  to  come  in 
from  the  surrounding  country  to  the  effect  that  in  the 
south  and  along  the  coast,  the  devastation  had  been 
much  greater,  the  loss  of  life  larger,  and  that  indeed, 
as  afterward  proved  to  be  the  case,  the  Capital  had 
only  been  touched  by  the  edge  of  the  storm. 

For  many  hours,  however,  these  rumors  did  not 
assume  a  substantial  form;  still  it  could  not  but  be 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  307 

regarded  as  a  sign  of  evil  omen  that  not  a  word  came 
in  either  by  courier  or  by  wire  announcing  how  it  had 
fared  with  the  people  of  the  other  ports  and  adjacent 
pueblos.  For  all  the  governor  and  his  staff  could  tell 
to  the  contrary,  the  rumor,  which  found  ready  belief 
among  many  of  the  Puerto  Ricans  that  the  provinces 
of  the  island  outside  of  San  Juan  had  been  entirely 
submerged  by  an  earthquake-wave,  might  well  be  true. 
On  the  evening  of  the  loth,  when,  as  I  say,  the  more 
pressing  needs  of  the  people  in  the  Capital  had  been 
attended  to,  and  the  great  wind  had  moderated  its 
violence  in  some  degree,  the  military  governor  took 
possession  of  such  vessels  as  were  yet  afloat  and  capa- 
ble of  making  steam,  and  hastily  loading  them  with  all 
the  provisions  and  tentage  available,  sent  them  out 
along  the  coast  to  relieve  the  distress  in  the  port  towns. 
At  the  same  time  patrols  of  cavalry  were  sent  into  the 
interior  to  carry  what  assistance  they  could  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  inland  villages. 

While  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  were  only  thinking 
of  their  own  selfish  interests  and  struggling  with  their 
neighbors  for  the  safe  places  where  they  thought  they 
might  hope  to  escape  the  rising  waters  of  the  sea,  and  the 
fires  that  had  broken  out  in  many  of  the  wrecked  dwel- 
lings, such  among  them  as  did  not  close  their  eyes,  as 
they  mumbled  their  Avest  saw  an  extraordinary  spectacle 
which  had  never  before  been  given  the  inhabitants  of 
Puerto  Rico  to  witness,  for  the  military  governor,  instead 
of  following  the  precedent  set  by  his  Spanish  predeces- 
sors on  similar  occasions,  of  remaining  in  the  hurricane 


3o8  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

proof  palace,  came  out  and  fought  the  rising  floods  with 
dikes  and  embankments,  as  though  he  had  been  born  a 
Dutchman  and  was  accustomed  to  dispute  every  inch 
of  territory  with  the  encroaching  sea.  It  was  not  long 
before  this  example  of  courage  and  resourceful  energy 
bore  fruit.  Soon  the  panic-stricken  people,  inspired  by 
the  example  of  the  governor  and  his  officers,  began  to 
pick  up  courage,  and  the  fires  were  soon  well  in  hand, 
and  the  rising  floods  apparently  under  control. 

Seeing  that  this  happy  result  had  been  attained,  the 
governor  returned  to  his  office  to  draw  up  plans  to 
meet  the  suffering  and  the  misery  which,  as  even  the 
meagre  reports  that  were  now  coming  in  showed  only 
too  plainly,  were  widespread  throughout  the  island. 

By  means  of  the  cable,  which,  fortunately  secure 
in  the  depths  of  the  sea,  had  not  been  broken,  or  even 
disturbed,  by  the  battle  of  the  elements,  he  made  the 
following  report:  — 

THE  HON.  SECRETARY  OF  WAR,  Washington :  — 

At  a  conservative  estimate,  100,000  Puerto  Ricans  have  lost 
their  homes  and  all  they  possess.  The  crops  throughout  the 
island,  and  particularly  in  the  interior  and  upon  the  south  coast, 
have  been  entirely  destroyed.  I  ask  that  3,000,000  pounds  of 
rice  and  beans  be  immediately  shipped.  At  the  present  mo- 
ment, it  is  impossible  to  say  how  many  people  have  lost  their 
lives.  The  most  conservative  estimate,  however,  that  has 
reached  me  is  3500  dead.  The  loss  of  life  in,  and  around, 
Ponce  is  noo.  The  resources  at  my  disposal  are  not  sufficient 
to  adequately  meet  the  situation,  and  I  ask  for  such  assistance 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  309 

as  you  may  think  the  situation  requires,  and  the  department 
may  be  able  to  give,  under  the  circumstances. 

This  despatch  had  hardly  been  sent,  when  an  answer 
came,  showing  that  an  alert  man,  quick  to  act,  was  in 
control  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire.  ...  It  read :  — 

You  are  authorized  to  make  such  use  of  the  military  stores 
in  your  department  as,  in  your  judgment,  may  be  required  by 
the  gravity  of  the  situation.  Congress  is  not  in  session,  or  else 
I  am  sure  that  the  sympathy  which  is  felt  throughout  the  coun- 
try for  the  people  of  Puerto  Rico,  in  this  hour  of  trial  and  af- 
fliction, would  assume  an  immediate,  and  a  practical  shape.  In 
the  meantime,  I  have  called  upon  the  public  for  contributions 
to  relieve  the  distress  in  your  department,  and  the  President 
has  headed  the  subscription  with  a  generous  donation.  Con- 
tributions are  coming  in  from  all  over  the  United  States.  Un- 
der these  circumstances,  I  authorize  you  to  draw  upon  this 
department  for  any  amount  which  you  may  deem  necessary, 
to  mitigate  the  sufferings  of  the  starving  and  those  who  are 
without  homes.  The  United  States  transport  Macphcrson 
leaves  New  York  at  noon  to-day,  with  provisions  and  medi- 
cal stores,  and  twelve  additional  surgeons.  I  am  holding  two 
steamers  in  readiness  to  sail  as  soon  as  I  hear  from  you  the 
nature  of  the  assistance,  most  urgently  required. 
Your  obedient  servant, 

ELIHU  ROOT,  Secretary  of  War. 

Upon  the  receipt  of  this  despatch  the  governor  read 
it  aloud  to  his  staff,  as  a  fitting  reward  for  the  fifty  hours 
of  unremitting  labor  which  they  had  given  in  carrying 
out  his  orders,  and  they  burst  out  into  cheers  for  Root, 


310  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

the  right  man  in  the  right  place.  The  members  of  the 
governor's  staff  now  returned  to  their  task  of  tabulating 
the  information  as  to  the  conditions  existing  in  the  more 
distant  districts  of  the  island  as  it  came  dribbling  in. 

"  Ponce  almost  entirely  destroyed,"  read  one  report. 
"  Three  of  our  men  killed,  and  more  than  a  thousand 
natives.  Of  the  village  of  Carolina,  near  here,  not  a 
vestige  can  be  seen  —  as  yet  not  a  single  inhabitant  of 
the  pueblo  has  reported.  The  natives  declare  that  the 
whole  place  h#s  been  blown  into  the  sea." 

"  Captain  Eben  Swift  reports  to  General  Davis  from 
the  port  of  Humacoa  that  the  town  is  a  complete  wreck, 
and  most  of  the  ruins  are  on  fire.  Eight  men  of  Troop 
C,  Fifth  Cavalry,  have  been  fatally  injured  while  fight- 
ing the  flames,  or  in  attempting  to  rescue  the  drowning 
from  the  floods.  Eighteen  hundred  people  are  starving 
here,  and  we  have  distributed  all  available  provisions. 
Commander  Snow  reports  that  Ensign  Gherardi  by  his 
gallantry  and  coolness  saved  a  hundred  lives  in  the 
harbor  of  Mayaguez.  Thirteen  reported  dead  at  Juanco, 
five  at  Las  Pedras." 

As  fast  as  these  returns  came  in  Lieutenant  Gill  tab- 
ulated them,  and  sent  the  originals  on  to  the  governor, 
and  to  Washington.  For  some  weeks,  in  fact  since  the 
day  on  which  he  had  read  the  laconic  obituary  of  Cap- 
tain Herndon,  Company  D,  Twenty-First  United  States 
Infantry,  killed  in  action  near  the  Zapote  River,  he 
had  worn  a  band  of  crape  about  his  arm.  Only  the 
evening  before,  by  the  mail  steamer  that  had  made  the 
harbor  of  San  Juan  in  the  teeth  of  the  gale,  a  letter 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  311 

had  reached  him,  which  still  lay  upon  his  desk  un- 
opened because  he  had  not  the  time  to  read,  and  he 
knew  only  too  well  the  nature  of  its  contents.  At  this 
moment  Leverett,  of  the  Cavalry,  came  in  to  get  his 
final  orders.  He  was  to  go  over  to  the  mainland  with  a 
squad  of  men,  to  try  and  locate  the  missing  village  of 
San  Juan  de  Dios,  and  he  dropped  in  to  consult  Gill  as 
to  whether  he  advised  him  to  start  on  horseback  or 
in  flatboats.  While  the  discussion  as  to  the  condition 
of  the  roads  was  in  progress  Manuel,  the  "most  noise- 
less of  servants,  a  Carib  in  face,  a  Frenchman  in  man- 
ner, in  blood  a  hodge-podge  of  all  the  races  that  have 
passed  over  the  West  Indian  islands  during  the  last 
five  hundred  years,  slipped  into  the  room,  bringing  a 
steaming  bowl  of  polio  con  arroz,  or,  chicken  with  rice, 
and  trimmings  of  peppers  and  cucumbers. 

"  I  hope  you  won't  mind  Manuel  turning  your  office 
into  an  eating-house,  but  the  fact  is,  I  told  him  to  do  it. 
I  haven't  had  a  bite  since  the  blow  began,  and  I  don't 
think  I  could  stand  it  another  twelve  hours."  Then  he 
added,  with  a  laugh,  "  Man  is  such  a  prisoner  of  habit ; 
and  that  of  eating  is  the  hardest  to  break  one's  self  of, 
though  in  the  Santiago  campaign  I  tried  to  do  it  with 
kola  nuts,  and  with  some  success." 

Gill  told  him  to  go  ahead,  and,  to  make  room  for  the 
dish,  he  lifted  the  unopened  letter  from  the  desk,  and 
placed  it  in  the  rack. 

"  A  soldier's  letter,"  said  Leverett,  as  his  eyes  caught 
sight  of  the  weather-stained  envelope,  "  and  stitched  with 
black  thread,  too.  I  am  sorry  you  are  getting  bad  news." 


3i2  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

"Yes,"  answered  Gill,  "it  is  about  Herndon,  from  a 
private  in  his  company  named  Sherman,  a  queer  dick, 
if  there  ever  was  one,  but  true  as  steel." 

"  Poor  Herndon,"  said  Leverett,  "  perhaps  you  don't 
know  that  we  were  after  Geronimo  for  nine  months 
together.  If  you  don't  read  your  letter  I  shall  feel  I 
am  interrupting  you." 

Gill  cut  the  thread,  for  our  soldiers  have  quickly  found 
out  that  mucilage  evaporates  and  sealing-wax  melts  or 
soon  cracks  in  the  tropics,  and  began  to  read  aloud  from 
the  discolored  pages,  while  Leverett  ate  like  a  man  in  a 
railway  station  and  Manuel  looked  on  in  open  mouthed 
admiration  of  men  who  can  take  an  interest  in  private 
correspondence  and  eat  with  undiminished  appetite 
though  the  sea  is  rising,  the  earth  shakes,  and  all  the 
witch  women  and  voodoo  prophets  in  the  land  say  that 
the  end  of  the  world  is  coming. 

IMUS-CAVITE  PROVINCE,  P.  I.,  June  15,  1899. 
DEAR  LIEUTENANT  :  — 

I  am  a  poor  hand  with  a  pen,  and  so  I  write 
with  a  pencil.  I  take  the  liberty  of  telling  you, 
who  shouldn't,  that  I  am  the  man  who  rustled 
you  a  blanket  that  night  after  San  Juan,  when  you 
was  doing  so  poorly,  because  what  I've  got  to  tell  you 
won't  perhaps  hurt  so  hard  if  you  know  it  comes  from  a 
friend  and  a  fellow  that  thought  a  sight  of  him,  too. 
We  got  on  the  move,  marching  along  the  river  on  the 
9th,  and  on  the  evening  of  the  loth  we  camped  at  a 
place  called  McCarty.  We  wanted  to  push  the  brownies 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  313 

over  the  Zapote  and  bag  Imus,  which  has  been  "  Aggie's  " 
principal  powwow  place  for  a  long  time.  We  done  it, 
too,  but  this  company  ain't  celebrating  much,  because  it 
lost,  in  the  scrap,  the  best  friend  it  ever  had. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  nth,  General  Lawton 
went  out  with  companies  C  and  F,  just  to  get  in  touch 
with  the  beggars,  and  the  Helena,  and  some  of  them 
boats  that  "  Uncle  George "  Dewey  took  from  the 
Spaniards,  began  to  drop  shells  into  the  jungle  and 
soon  there  was  a  pretty  smart  cracking  of  rifles  all 
along  the  line.  In  half  an  hour  Lawton  came  back  to 
Las  Pinas  tickled  to  death,  and  said  he  had  found  them, 
a  lot  of  them,  close  on  to  5000,  and  he  wanted  us  to 
come  and  round  them  up,  for  he  claimed  that  these 
brownies  belonged  to  him  and  he  didn't  want  one  of 
them  to  get  across  the  river.  We  pushed  ahead  flanked 
by  a  battalion  of  the  Ninth,  three  companies  of  the  Four- 
teenth and  two  of  the  Twelfth.  The  brownies  held 
their  ground  better  than  they  had  ever  done  before.  It 
seemed  like  they  thought  a  lot  of  their  position,  but  we 
closed  in  around  them,  and  set  fire  to  the  bridge  in  their 
rear,  and  then  came  back  to  roll  up  the  main  body,  who 
were  lying  in  a  rice  dike  covered  with  cinaguela  bushes. 
We  had  some  trouble  in  digging  them  out,  and  when  we 
got  them  we  had  to  put  'em  back  in  the  ditch  again,  for 
they  was  all  dead.  Some  brownies  were  still  firing 
at  us  from  across  the  river  with  the  old  smooth-bore 
guns  they  stole  from  the  Cavite  arsenal  last  summer, 
but  they  was  doing  us  no  harm  and  everything  was 
over  but  the  shouting  and  the  gathering  them  in.  White 


3i4  THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

flags  were  cropping  out  on  the  top  of  all  the  bushes, 
and  word  was  passed  back  to  our  mountain  gun  battery, 
"  swamp  angels "  is  what  we  call  them  now,  to  shut 
up.  Our  prisoners  were  coming  out  of  the  brush  and 
we  were  waiting  on  the  near  side  of  the  trench  to  go  in 
and  disarm  the  rest,  when  a  little  brownie  with  his  leg 
broken  and  half  his  face  shot  away  came  splashing 
along  the  rice-ditch  like  a  water-dog.  When  he  saw  us 
he  dropped  his  gun  and  threw  up  his  hands  and  yelled, 
"  Amigo !  mucho  amigo ! "  which  means,  I  am  your 
friend.  "  Aguinaldo  malo,  mucho  malo  " —  and  Agui- 
naldo  is  a  bad  lot.  So  we  felt  that  we  had  not  only 
boosted  them  across  the  Zapote  and  taken  a  sight  of 
prisoners,  but  beaten  some  sense  into  their  heads  in  the 
bargain,  which  was  a  good  deal  when  you  consider  we 
only  had  ten  dead  and  forty  wounded  to  take  care  of. 

That  boy  was  a  sight  to  look  at ;  the  blood  was  com- 
ing from  him  like  out  of  a  spigot,  and  the  captain 
called  Waters  (Waters,  as  perhaps  you  have  heard 
tell,  was  Tiis  striker  in  Cuby,  a  good  man  but  not 
much  of  a  rustler)  and  they  started  to  carry  the  little 
boy  to  a  nipa  shack  which  we  had  passed  a  couple 
of  hundred  yards  back,  and  from  there  Waters  was 
to  go  to  the  rear  and  drum  up  the  hospital  men.  Be- 
fore they  started  back  the  captain  wrapped  his  own 
first  aid  bandage  around  the  little  worm,  who  was  no 
bigger  than  a  tin  cup,  and  the  boy  kissed  his  hand  re- 
spectful-like,  like  a  dog  (they  are  that  way  when  they  are 
licked),  and  said  again,  "Amigo !  mucho  amigo !  "  They 
hadn't  gone  back  more  than  two  minutes  when  I  begun 


THE   GOLDEN   HORSESHOE  315 

to  get  uneasy,  I  didn't  see  any  red  flag  flying  over  that 
nipa  shack,  and  down  by  the  river  the  firing  was  spring- 
ing up,  which  showed  that  the  brownies  had  caught  on 
to  how  few  we  was,  for  all  our  noise,  and  were  making 
a  sneak  to  get  across  the  river  under  cover  of  their  white 
flags,  so  I  took  a  couple  of  men  with  me  and  pushed 
back  to  the  shack ;  and  the  little  amigo  was  gone,  though 
there  was  a  trail  of  his  blood  in  the  bush  if  we  had  wanted 
to  follow  him,  which  we  did  not.  There  on  the  floor  of 
the  shack  lay  the  captain,  and  Waters  lay  across  him 
like  as  if  he  had  been  fighting  to  protect  his  body  to 
the  last.  Some  of  the  brownies  had  come  sneaking  by  in 
the  bush  and  carved  them  up  with  their  cane  knives  and 
bolos  and  they  had  left  the  katapunan  mark  on  them  to 
let  us  know  who  done  the  dirty  work.  .  .  . 

You  wouldn't  know  the  old  regiment,  so  help  me,  you 
wouldn't  —  though  we  would  like  to  have  you  drop  in 
and  look  the  outfit  over,  just  as  you  used  to  do  when  we 
were  setting  Cuby  free.  The  veterans  have  dropped  out 
for  many  reasons,  but  mostly  because  they  couldn't  hang 
on  any  longer,  and  the  recruities  that  we've  got  would 
make  your  heart  ache,  just  the  sight  of  them!  The 
worst  part  of  the  show  is  they  don't  seem  to  have 
an  idea  what  blooming  scarecrows  they  be,  they  haven't 
learnt  how  to  walk  yet  no  more  than  a  baby  two  hours 
old,  they  can't  cook  with  or  without  a  buzzycot,  and  they 
can't  swing  a  cartridge  belt  so  that  it  will  carry,  and  they 
carry  their  rifles  about  as  though  they  was  umbrellies. 
For  all  that  they  are  sandy  boys  with  plenty  of  the  right 
stuff  in  them,  and  they  will  have  learnt  a  thing  or  two 


3i6  THE  GOLDEN   HORSESHOE 

I  guess  before  they  come  marching  home  to  Plattsburg 
Barracks. 

I  am  a  poor  hand  with  a  pen,  as  I  told  you,  and  I  had 
almost  forgot  to  say  that  I  sent  yesterday  to  the  adju- 
tant-general's office  our  captain's  sword  and  the  buttons 
off  his  tunic  for  the  next  of  kin,  as  the  regulations  re- 
quire, and  there  was  also  a  golden  horseshoe,  which  he 
had  taken  to  wearing,  pinned  to  the  scarf  around  his 
sombrero  since  we  landed  out  here.  When  we  found  him 
dead  in  the  shack  the  horseshoe  had  been  turned  down 
by  the  briers  as  he  pushed  through  the  jungle,  and 
that  is  how  we  think  all  his  luck  ran  out  by  the  heel 
corks.  We  all  know  Company  D  will  never  have  a 
better  captain.  He  never  said  "  go,"  to  the  boys  and 
then  went  back  to  Brigade  Headquarters  to  shoot  off  his 
mouth  in  a  council  of  war.  No,  he  says  "  come  on,"  and 
leads  the  way,  and  that's  why  we  always  come.  .  .  . 

"  Poor  Herndon,"  said  Leverett,  as  he  rose  from  the 
table,  wrapping  his  cavalry  cloak  and  poncho  about  him, 
"  I  would  hate  to  be  done  up  like  that.  A  year  ago, 
when  it  seemed  that  the  world  belonged  to  the  money 
grubbers,  it  would  not  have  mattered  much,  but  to-day, 
with  such  a  lot  of  good  work  to  be  done,  I  should  hate  to 
die." 

"  Perhaps,"  answered  Gill,  quietly,  "  perhaps  it  was 
thought  that  he  had  done  his  part." 

THE   END 


THE   PHILIPPINE  ISLANDS  AND 
THEIR  PEOPLE 

A  RECORD   OF  PERSONAL  OBSERVATION  AND  EXPERIENCE  WITH  A 

SHORT  SUMMARY  OF  THE  MORE  IMPORTANT  FACTS  IN 

THE  HISTORY  OF  Til  1C  ARCHIPELAGO 

By  DEAN  C.  WORCESTER, 

Assistant  Professor  of  Zoology,  University  of  Michigan;  Member 
of  the  Philippine  Commission 

Fully  illustrated  from  photographs  taken  by  Dr.  F.  S.  BOURNS  in  visits  to 
all  the  chief  islands,  including  even  the  wildest  and  the  least  explored. 

Cloth.      Svo.     $4.00 


"  The  great  timeliness  and  pertinence  of  the  information  contained  give  it  an 
insistent  claim  to  careful  attention.  .  .  .  Exhaustive  without  degenerating  into 
mere  detail  and  statistic,  its  contents  are  informed  with  a  spirit  of  disinterested- 
ness and  candor  worthy  of  high  praise.  At  the  same  time  it  answers,  and 
authoritatively,  many  questions  which  every  conscientious  citizen  is  just  now 
asking  himself." —  The  Dial,  Chicago. 

"  Of  all  the  books  about  the  Philippine  Islands  which  have  been  published 
since  this  group  became  an  object-point  of  American  interest,  it  is  safe  and  fair 
to  say  that  none  can  compare  in  interest  and  value  to  the  one  written  by  Profes- 
sor Worcester  and  published  in  a  beautiful  edition  by  the  Macmillan  Company." 
—  The  New  York  Press. 

"  The  solid  value  of  his  work  for  the  conclusions  which  affect  the  future  of 
the  Philippines  in  political,  commercial,  and  industrial  lines  is  indisputable. 
To  this  must  be  added  its  charm  as  a  record  of  adventures  and  experiences 
of  the  most  exciting  and  diverting  character." —  The  Outlook. 

"  Professor  Worcester's  book  should  be  read  by  every  American.  It  is  the 
most  comprehensive,  intelligent,  and  impartial  description  of  the  archipelago 
obtainable,  not  even  excepting  the  work  of  Mr.  Foreman.  It  is,  besides  this,  a 
delightfully  animated  account  of  experiences  among  a  barbarous  people,  and 
in  a  country  whose  nature  even  yet  remains  to  a  large  extent  unknown."  — 
The  Evening  Bulletin,  Philadelphia. 

"  There  is  an  exceedingly  valuable  appendix  on  the  natural  resources  of  the 
Philippines  and  the  conditions  governing  their  development.  Though  brief  it 
contains  all  essential  facts.  There  are  numerous  good  illustrations  and  a  valu- 
able map,  compiled  from  the  latest  surveys  of  the  British  government,  with  cor- 
rections by  the  author.  Altogether  it  is  a  model  book  of  its  kind,  exactly 
adapted  for  the  everyday  reader."  —  The  Chicago  Tribune. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,   NEW  YORK 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


DISCHAKGE-URL 


r  198C 

DEC!  91980 


NOV]  2100- 

MAR  0  9  1992 


FEB27 


QL  APR  0?199I 
MW21-97    HKU 


Form  L9-50m-7,'54 (5990)444 


3^03 
36U1 


The  golden 
horseshoe— 


PS 
3503 


